Reckless Abandon
by coopdaloop
Summary: Sirius Black has flown off into the night on Buckbeak. Now what? Being in hiding is almost as bad as Azkaban, until he stumbles upon a woman who sparks his interest. She might just be more mysterious and guarded than he is... But they're determined to figure each other out.
1. oo1

The pebble was small, almost triangular in shape. She rolled it between her thumb and middle fingers a few times absentmindedly before switching it to her index finger. A large amount of dusty dirt had come off and onto her hand, turning it from its natural pale state to a murky grey.

She stopped moving the pebble around. Closing her eyes and straining her ears, she listened intently. She could hear the bustling sounds of nature that often seemed to fade to silence. The pond lapping at its banks, the bees buzzing near the poppies off to her left a ways, a butterfly or two flapping around the cornflower she adored more immediately to her right, the wind blowing softly through all the foliage: the ash trees, the elms, and the very imposing beech tree. She let all of these soft sounds fade into the silence once more, except the wind in the beech tree directly behind her.

Behind her. She could hear it again. Softly, quietly. The very faint rustling of something against the fallen, dying beech leaves which coated the ground. A tail, in fact. In addition a faint panting came from near the beech's massive gnarled trunk. She let herself indulge in a smile as it slowly spread across her face. He was back again. How many times was this now? She had stopped counting around seven.

Then she began to worry. _Was he waiting for her to leave? Was she in his way? In his spot?_ she agonized. This was her spot. It always had been. Well, it had been long ago. But it was quickly becoming hers once again. That didn't mean it was her spot alone though. She didn't own the pond, the miles of confusing, indistinguishable forest, the clearing, or any of the countryside here. It was tucked away, hidden. Immensely tough to get to and easy to lose your way, even if you had been successful in the past, hence it was greatly unvisited. The clearing nearly belonged to her, or so it had seemed that way until recently.

Her… companion of sorts, a rather ghostly and shadowy companion, mind you, and a dog no less, had begun to join her over the past couple weeks. Four days straight in fact earlier that week. Not every day, but often. It was odd. Almost alarming, but he always kept his distance, stayed quiet and out of sight, never letting himself be known, or so he thought. _I guess that's considerate. Or it could be creepy. And dangerous. And bad. I don't know,_ she muddled. _Or he could just be shy and unsure. Or he could just be somewhere he's not meant to be and doesn't want anyone to know. Or he could be so depressingly lonely he isn't even sure how to approach a person. I bet that's it. …I don't know it could be a million things. Damn._

She pushed it all from her mind and decided to be as positive as possible for once. Her eyes still closed, she basked in the sunlight, smiling once again, listening to the slow and even wagging of his tail, rusting against the leaf-coated ground and his light but quick panting. _He must be dying off heat,_ she thought, _he does have a black fur coat after all._

She realized the pebble in her hand once more and took to rolling it between her index finger and thumb for a moment. _I should just get on with this_ , she thought, _just say something. The worst that happens is I scare him away. He leaves and I don't see him again. He'll leave soon anyway; it's nearly two… Oh, he's just a bloody dog! …but he's a person. I need to say something before I get more emotionally attached to him._

She had barely even seen him. She had mostly just heard him: his tail wagging, his breath as he panted. Those were the normal sounds. They were comforting sounds. Sometimes she heard his foot as he scratched behind his ear. This always made her smile and try not to giggle, as he tried to do it quietly or when the wind blew or a bird sang so as to not alert her to his presence. But even though she always looked to just be watching the water, throwing stones, dipping her feet in the water, or staring at the clouds, all of which she enjoyed doing, she was really just listening. She was listening to nature, but ever since he had begun arriving, she had listened for him and to him. And then there was her least favorite sound of his. It was quiet but distinct. It always made her shoulders slump, her face fall, and her lungs sigh. It was the sound of his panting ending, his slow, disciplined tail-wagging stopping, and his weight shifting to raise himself up to leave.

She had seen him too though. Not often but it had happened. Twice, was all. She hated hearing him leave, so she had left before him sometimes. Not always by choice even. Works calls, after all. She would put on her shoes, gather her things if she had any that day, and stretch, twisting around towards the beech tree, catching a couple glimpses of the large, shaggy, fit, black dog, even as he quickly slunk back to hide. Then she would always look back towards the cornflower for a last time, and head to what had been her left from her typical seated or supine position, and make her way home. She would walk just far enough until she was sure he couldn't hear her Disapparate. She sometimes swore she could hear him sigh as she left, and even though she didn't like to hear him sad, if he was sad about her leaving, well maybe that wasn't the worst thing.

She closed her eyes for just a moment more. He only had a few minutes left today; she was sure of it. She took a deep breath and shifted her weight to one elbow before reaching her arm backward and lazily launching the pebble out into the pond.

She and he both watched it the wind carry it farther than her arm would've on its own. They separately watched the rings ripple out across the entire pond, slowly and evenly. There something about the symmetry of the ripples in the randomness of nature that felt nice to him. Everything over the past year seemed crazy, and lately he had felt so confined. So near freedom but it was just out of reach. The last year had been exhausting and unpredictable and exhausting, and the twelve before that had been as bad as could be. But he thought this would turn around. After returning to the house he grew up in though he realized it was almost as bad, just in a different way.

He had finally taken to running. Something he had never found useful or fulfilling or enticing growing up. Sure he had been athletic, and he was beginning to get that back now, though surely he still had a long way to go. He had played Quidditch, and he had run as training for that, but he had never just run for its own sake, even in his secondary form. But as he had spent a week in his old house that he had hated so much, nearly rotting away, he had to get out.

He couldn't just walk out, that was the whole point of him staying at his old, protected, hidden house. But his secondary, canine form. His unregistered form. That had a chance. And indeed it had worked. He had begun running to feel the wind on his face and through his fur, to feel freedom once again. He had ached for it. Longed for it.

He had found the clearing in his first week of running. On his third time there, he had stumbled upon her. _Her. Who was she? She was… just her_ , he thought, _the young, simple, beautiful muggle._ He didn't know much else. She dressed well, to him at least. He wasn't very up on women's fashion. Never had been but being confined to a cell for twelve years, on the run for another, and in hiding for a few weeks didn't provide for the best situation to educate himself on the subject. _She's young, maybe twenty-two, but probably twenty-three if I'm was putting money on it. Perhaps twenty-four, but not over that, surely, and pretty too,_ he mused. He didn't often get to see her face, as she stayed near the edge of the pond usually, or a little farther back, but near the cornflower always, and he always made sure to keep his distance. He had to pant to keep from overheating and passing out. He didn't want to accidentally turn human, as he always did when injured as a canine. So he stayed in the shade near the cool trunk of the beech tree, making sure to pant quietly.

He hadn't caught her everyday since he had first found her. He didn't even know if she came here everyday. But he did. He had contact with, three people on a semi-regular basis. He longed for daily interaction. He was a sociable man, after all. And he liked her company, if you could call it that. She didn't even know he existed but he had grown strangely attached to her. _Is this creepy? Am I stalking her? I mean, she doesn't know I'm here… Maybe this isn't okay. Maybe I should forget her,_ he thought, _…I can't do that. I just can't. I would never scare her, or hurt her, or do anything. …but I am watching her. No, I'm not. I'm just watching the pond. She just so happens to be in my line of sight. So what? Oh, hell, who am I kidding. I'm here for her. She's just so… Who is she anyways? That's all I want to know. Honestly. If I just knew her name, I'd leave,_ he promised himself, _…as if that's not going to make me want to know more about her._

He had first laid eyes on her about three weeks ago, and twelve times in total. He was slowly beginning to learn her schedule. _Shit. I am a stalker,_ he realized, as he had recently been able to see her four days in a row. He had nearly figured out her schedule. As his was, well flexible, to say the least, he had begun organizing his runs around when she was at the pond. For example, she came early on Thursday, but never on Friday or Saturday, or if she did, it was well before he had been able to drag himself out of bed, say 10am or so. But who would come that early anyways? Especially on a Saturday. But Mondays? Mondays were good days. Who knew he would ever come to love Mondays? She was always here on Mondays, and usually for a while, too.

The only problem was that most days she came in the early afternoon, as she had again today. The sun was rather high, as it was early afternoon once again, and almost two o'clock now. Two o'clock. He had to be leaving soon. His schedule was flexible that was for sure; he rarely had any commitments, but he did one have unflinching commitment. Every Monday night he had dinner with those three other people he saw on a semi-regular basis. He was expected at 4 o'clock to help and visit, so if he left by 2 o'clock he had enough time to finish his run back to his house, cool off (it was very hot in the sun as a black dog), shower, change, and wait to be brought to dinner.

She knew this. Not about dinner, of course, she didn't know anything about him except the fact that he was an Animagus, a black dog, and unregistered. She had checked. She had meticulously read through all of England's records for the past century, even though she was certain he couldn't be that old. He was too concentrated on staying hidden, even though she had picked up on him, and spry to be a century old, and that would be if he had become an Animagus at birth. _No, he couldn't be more than… fifty. Right?_ she thought. _He's got to be of age, surely. Becoming an Animagus, without the help of the ministry for regulation? That's complex. Oh, I don't know. Just say something. Clearly he's not about to. And he'll leave in…_ she checked her watch. 1:57pm. _Yikes! Get a move on, would you?!_

She saw the ripples from the pebble hitting the edge of the pond on the side nearest her. She sat up, slid her sandals back on and stood. She turned towards the cornflower and then past it to gaze up at the top of the beech tree. She tried to suppress a grin as out of the corner of her eye she saw him slink around towards the back of the tree trunk, as secretly as possible. She inhaled once more hoping some burst of confidence would come with it. It didn't. _Looks like I'll be doing this on my own then. Thanks, nature,_ she thought.

Keeping her eyes near the top of the tree, her cohort on the edge of her vision, she opened her mouth. "You know I know you're here, right?" she asked just loud enough for him to hear.

He froze. His panting stopped, as did his slow tail. _She's not talking to me. She's not. She can't be. She's just a crazy person. That's it. A crazy muggle who's just crazy. After all she's looking way above me. And I'm basically completely obscured. I mean, I can see her, but barely; I doubt she can see me._

She lowered her eyes and looked directly at him. "And I know you're not a dog," she continued with a slight polite smile.

 _Fuck. Cover's blown. Time to leave. Leave forever. Leave so fast and don't look back; don't come back; don't think back. Okay maybe think back but to the times before this one, not this one. This is terrifying. GO. Dammit, why am I frozen in fear? This doesn't happen to me. I'm a damn dog, for Merlin's sake, not a cat!_

She squinted and looked down at the ground in thought. "Well, seriously, I suppose you are a dog, but, to be serious, not just a dog. Not naturally anyways. Seriously, you're clearly an Animagus."

He cocked his head to the side. _How on earth does she know? How did she figure it out? And when_?

She continued on her nervous ramble. "God, I need to stop saying 'seriously' so much." She took another breath and looked back up at him, noticing his cocked head and widened eyes. "Oh seriously, don't give me that look, it's obvious."

 _So much for not saying "seriously," love. That's all right; I like it. Not quite what I'm looking for, and not how you mean it, but close enough._

"Dogs don't just sit and watch people. Seriously, unless they're about to give them food or they own them, and clearly those don't apply here."

 _This is too much. This is bad. I am in so much trouble. Oh, I am so dead. Merlin, she really is adorable though. I've never seen her face for more than a few seconds, and not expressions like this, the polished happiness, the confusion, the nervousness. Wait, do I make her nervous? No, no, anyone talking to a dog who they're pretty sure but not entirely sure is a person would be nervous. Well, no she's pretty sure. She said "Animagus." She wasn't even a muggle. Merlin. This is new. Oh, this is so different. Everything. Everything is changing. This is too much. I need to leave._ He rose up off his back legs.

"No, don't leave! Please." She pleaded, as he got up. "Look, it's…" she glanced down at her watch, "1:58. You have two minutes. I know that because we've both been here the past three Mondays…"

 _Well that answers one question. She's known at least twenty-two days about me. That's almost as long as I've known about her! I thought I was good at this…_

"…and your comings and goings don't seem uniform, but on Mondays at least, you always leave before me, and always at two o'clock. How you know it's two, I seriously have no idea, which is very impressive by the way, but more to the point, just listen. I know you have to go, but I seriously like seeing you here. Or I _would_ like actually _seeing_ you, because seriously until now I really haven't," she laughed, but quickly regained her composure knowing he had to leave soon. "I hope me confronting you doesn't scare you away, because I'd seriously like to keep seeing you." She sighed again. "I've got to stop with the 'seriously's, I know. I'm working on it. I mean, really I'd like to see you as a human, and talk with you, but even if it's just in dog form, I'd like to see you again. Maybe I can just talk to you if you won't talk back…"

 _Huh… Maybe. Maybe this could be okay… I'll probably have to talk it over at dinner._ _But I don't frighten her_ _._ His heart soared. _She's not creeped out. Then again she's been coming here to be by me too, so maybe I should be creeped out… No, I'm definitely the creepy one here, if anyone._

"…so anyways, tomorrow I have some things to do, but I'll be here for a while too. I know it's got to be hot with the fur and all, and I'm busy in the afternoon, but I'll be in the morning maybe around, 9:30. Probably stay until eleven or so. That's a good amount of time. So seriously no pressure, but if you'd like to come by, I'll be here then," she paused and just looked at him, noticing his grey eyes. She assumed they were nearly what his human eyes would be like, as all black dogs she had seen before had brown eyes.

 _Why so early? I suppose if that's the only time she can come. And if she hadn't said anything, I'd have missed her tomorrow. That's not her usual time. And it could be nice not coming out when it's so hot. But that's early. Well, it could be worth it. Besides not being up all hours of the night would probably be good for me._

She was reminded of the other possibility of his frequent presence and shrugged and smiled at him again, almost smirking, "or if I'm just in your way of a great, shady view the pond, I'll be gone by eleven. You can have it the rest of the day and night." She glanced down at her watch once again. 2:01. "It's 2:01," she informed him, sighing. "You better be going to… whatever Monday commitment you have." She yawned. "I'm off to get some coffee. Hope to see you tomorrow," she said with another smile as she craned her neck to see him more easily and waved slightly. "Goodbye."

With a loud, nature-disturbing crack, she Disapparated and was gone from his sight.


	2. oo2

The crack echoed, and sent a few terrified birds hurtling toward the sky. If it hadn't he would've dismissed it as some weird dream he was having. _No, that was real. That happened. She knew. Her. …She hadn't said her name, had she? No, I would've remembered. Hell, I would've fixated on that. I've been dying to know._

He so badly wanted to regain his human form right now. When his thoughts were as muddled and confusing as this, sorting them out in a fully human brain made them more coherent and smooth. Instead he jogged out to the pond and jumped over the bank. His momentum slowed beneath the water and he reveled for a moment in the quiet and the peacefulness. As he began to rise once again towards the surface, he let most of his air supply escape, and gulped a fresh one once his head broke the surface. He shook the water out of his eyes and fur, much as he would out of his hair if he were human. It had been over a decade since he had swum as a human. Oh, how he missed it. But this was no time to think about it. Surely he was going to be late tonight.

Renewed with energy by thoughts of his latest encounter with Her, he got out of the water, shook off all the water he could, and raced on home. He felt the wind whip against his face as he flew over fallen branches and darted between trees. It was freezing on his newly wet fur and skin, but a delightful contrast to the burning heat he had been dealing with before. He lost himself in picturing her face, and before he knew it he was standing before Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Oh, how he hated it. At least he had the image of Her to concentrate on instead of the ugliness of this wretched dump.

He quickly cleaned himself up before collapsing on the small, dusty settee near the front door. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and slowly, still trying to bring down his slightly elevated temperature. Between the heat on his fur and his unexpected encounter that had made him embarrassingly panic and freeze (though only to the spot he was in earlier, not at all to cool him down), he was still rather warm, even after his shower. _Maybe I should get myself a glass of water._ He checked his watch. _Well I'm late, but he's late too. He should be here any minute now. I'll get one at dinner._

He lost himself in thoughts of an hour and a half ago again. Her proposal. Tomorrow morning. _Should I go? Should I not go? I want to go. I want to see Her again. But She knows. She wants to talk with me. I can't show Her who I am. I'm in hiding. Meeting new people isn't exactly hiding! But She said I could just come as a dog as usual. She could just talk to me. That'd be nice. Maybe I'll just go, refuse to turn into human form around her, listen to what She has to say, and I can always just run if things get weird or bad. Yeah, that'll do just fine… They always say that curiosity killed the cat, but it might just kill me. Merlin, why do I keep thinking of cat things today?_ He kicked a dusty pillow at the end of the settee onto the floor. A large cloud of dust billowed out and into the air, causing him to cough uncontrollably. _Maybe I should rethink that glass of water…_

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

He tried to control his coughing and breathing as he answered the door. He swung it open without a second thought to looking through the peephole at who it was or inquiring audibly.

"Sirius," he was greeted warmly but sternly, "you know you're meant to check before you open the door. And don't tell me you at least looked there wasn't enough time for that, and-"

"Well, excuse me, but I may only have moments left with whatever I inhaled from a throw pillow a moment ago, Remus," he said quickly as he resumed his coughing fit once more.

Remus entered the foyer of the house and began clapping his boyhood friend on the back as he struggled to regain a normal breathing pattern. As his coughing subsided from constant ragged coughs to intermittent controlled ones, he spoke again, "Do you need a glass of water quickly or can we leave? Molly's going to have a fit if we're late… We're going to cut out part of our normal journey and shorten it up a bit."

"I would sooner cut off my own arm than face the wrath of Molly. Let's get going. It's good to see you by the way, Moony," Sirius finished with a smirk and a quick, light slap to the back of the head.

"Oi! What was that for, Padfoot?" he replied with a glare and an identical slap.

They may be in their thirties now, blimey how time had flown since they had met when they were eleven, but get them together and it was just like they were back at school. "Just for nothing. Wait until you do something." And he stepped onto the front step.

Remus followed and they Disapparated, resuming their footing on earth only a couple miles away, and in a thicket of bushes. Sirius transformed quickly into a dog, and they walked a good thousand feet to the cover of some cedar trees, where he regained his human form, and they Disapparated again, this time to a low abandoned creek bed, and they repeated this ritual of Apparating and dog walking, Apparating and dog walking, Apparating and dog walking, six more times usually. Today they only did four, being late.

The point of not Apparating all at once, was to not be tracked by the Ministry. If Remus, a werewolf, was Apparating all over the place and stumbling between his Disapparation and Apparation spots, they'd just assume the poor guy was out drunk and lost. Not smuggling a fugitive. The number one fugitive actually.

They soon Apparated to the tall grasses that graced the front of the Burrow and Sirius resumed his canine form once more and raced to the front door, barking once he was within ear shot.

"Oh, stop all that barking would you?! The garden needs degnoming again and if you get them all riled up it will only be more difficult, Sirius!" a voice came from the kitchen window.

He stopped immediately and whined at the door, waiting for it to open. He wasn't supposed to become human again until he was safely indoors or in the backyard, just in case. The door swung open after a few moments and he entered the well-loved house. He quickly regained human form yet again and leaned against the wall. It was dizzying changing form so often in such a small amount of time.

He smiled at the woman and opened his arms to her, "Molly!" he said as warmly as was possible while trying not to cough and stay standing upright.

Instead of accepting his hug, she took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're late," she stated with eyebrows raised.

He launched into another minor coughing fit but was able to choke out a response between coughs, "Yes, I know. I am so sorry. But, it was Remus' fault. He was late and I had a minor issue with a dusty throw pillow, hence the coughing," at this point Molly's eyes softened and she walked over to the sink fill a glass with water for him. "Ah, thank you, Molly, you're truly an angel."

She nodded in agreement, as he drank desperately. After he downed the glass he opened his arms to her again, smiling, waiting for a hug. Instead she lifted the damp dishtowel from her shoulder and whipped him in the stomach. "Oi! What was that for, Molly?"

"You're late!" she repeated walking away.

"Remus' fault!"

"I don't care, Sirius. And you shouldn't be blaming him. It was clearly at least partially your fault too."

"Pillow's fault, really," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" she inquired with her eyebrows raised again.

"Nothing! Oh, Molly just hug me! I don't get to hug anyone. I don't get to talk to anyone. I don't even get to see anyone. I'm a very social person; I need interaction."

She sighed, came over and finally gave into hugging him. "It's good to see you, Sirius. Even if you are late." She then broke away and took his empty glass from him, walking back into the kitchen to refill it. "But don't lie to me again, Sirius."

"I haven't lied to you," he assured her quickly.

Remus had caught up to the Burrow and walking in the door at this point. "You may not get to hug or talk to people, but you do see people," Molly continued refilling the glass, and filling another for Remus.

Sirius stared at her quizzically. _She doesn't know. No. She couldn't. That's impossible._

Molly handed a glass to Remus who thanked her and handed Sirius his glass once more, who took a sip and inquired, "Molly, have you been cooking too much? Do you need to sit down? You're talking crazy, Angel. I'm cooped up all day, everyday. Except for coming here, my haven. And occasional visits from the three of you."

She just smiled a rather knowing smile and asked, "How's your girlfriend, Sirius?"

He began to panic but tried to play it off as a joke, "Oh, Molly, you know you're the only woman for me," he said with a wink.

She had been married for over twenty-five years, and had six sons of her own. She was used to male charm, and had long since become immune to it. Except to her husband's on occasion. Needless to say, a mere wink from Sirius Black left her unfazed. "The woman at the pond?" she pressed him further.

 _No. Nope. No. This isn't happening. Molly doesn't know. First She knows about me, then Molly knows about Her. All in one day. This day isn't real. Remus knows but… REMUS._

He came out of his second frozen state of the day, a rather unusual occurrence for him to begin with, and turned toward Remus. "Remus! I told you to keep that to yourself! Dammit, Moony!" he said hitting him in the shoulder repeatedly, as Remus grunted and grabbed at his fist to hold him off.

"Oh, stop that both of you! I will not have you beating one another up and spilling water all over my welcome mat. And Sirius, he didn't tell me, you did," Molly fussed.

"I most certainly did not," Sirius said, rather sure of himself.

"Well, I suppose both of you did really. You talk about it on the sofa and in the garden, which are both right next to the kitchen, which is where I always am. And neither of you are very soft spoken. Honestly, did you really think I wasn't going to hear you?" she continued with the same triumphant smile.

Sirius huffed. _Well the gig is up for real now, I suppose._ He drained his glass again, still looking at her.

"Well come sit at the table, I'll get you two some proper drinks, and I want to hear about her straight from the house elf's mouth," she said as she turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

Sirius looked wide-eyed at Remus begging for help. Remus raised his eyebrows, shoulders, and hands as if to say _don't look at me!_ and Sirius groaned. They followed her into the kitchen. Remus seated himself and neatly placed his glass on the table. Sirius on the other hand collapsed into the chair at the head of the table and plopped his empty glass down.

"Don't you dare break my chair, Sirius Black," Molly threatened with a commanding tone, even though she was facing away from the men and towards a large pot of sauce.

"Oh you don't know for certain that was me, Angel. That could've just as well have been Moony."

"No, I have respect for people's things and property, Padfoot," Remus countered, "besides I haven't been living as a dog in a cage lately," he continued with a smirk.

"No, you've just been living as a wolf. The most wild of the dogs, Moony," he retorted as he remembered last week had been a full moon. "How are you feeling?" he asked in a much more concerned and caring tone.

"Stiff. Sore. Not ideal, but as expected. Nothing out of the ordinary." Remus replied, as Molly put a large Butterbeer in front of him, and then a small platter of a variety of desserts, all chocolaty. His favorite. "Oh, thank you, Molly, really. You know me too well."

"Of course, dear," she replied to the werewolf as she slapped Sirius hand away from the platter.

"Oi! How come I can't have any? And dessert before dinner? Is the great Molly Weasley going soft on us?" Sirius inquired cheekily.

"You can have some as soon as you start talking about your girlfriend."

 _Dammit, I really thought I had changed the subject. All right, time to try again._ "Don't you have a garden that needs degnoming? Which one is it this time? I'll get on that, straight away."

Remus laughed as he ate a triple chocolate cookie.

"Offering to do chores? Just to get out of talking about a girl? She must really be something special," Molly replied.

 _Dammit. Too eager._

"Oh alright, but I'm eating these if I'm going to be talking about her. And I'll need a drink."

Molly stopped adding spices to her sauce and turned to face him. "Whiskey or rum this time?"

Sirius thought it over. "Do you have gin?"

"Gin? You never drink gin."

"I do drink gin." _Not often, but I have before._

"You hate gin." Molly stated.

"Yeah, I don't think I've even seen you have gin, mate." Remus offered.

"Well if you're going to torture me for information about Her, I might just need some gin. So have you got any?"

"Top left cabinet," Molly said gesturing, "I can't quite reach it so you'll have to."

Sirius obliged and opened the dusty cabinet. He moved a few rarely used ingredients and bottles before his eyes fell on the gin and took it out. "Oh, Sirius, would you grab the Merlot while you're up there? I'd like to have it with dinner," Molly added.

"Of course, Angel." She rolled her eyes at the name. He found it and took it out setting it next to the gin. He rinsed both dusty bottles off and poured himself a rather healthy amount of gin. A triple drink at least, most likely more.

"Alright there, Padfoot, that's plenty." Remus said taking the bottle away from him.

Sirius quickly downed half of it and quickly chased it with some sort of chocolate pastry. The gin still burned but the light chocolate snack was doing wonders to fix that. "This is delicious, Molly! What is it? How did you make it?" Sirius inquired, trying one last time to change the topic.

"Chocolate filled chocolate croissant, dear," she answered, "made it by baking. Now stop stalling. Out with it, go on."

"Shouldn't we wait for Arthur? I have no doubt you've told him too, and I don't fancy repeating myself."

"I'll fill him in on what he's missed after you've left. I've been dying to hear about this girl, now out with it, boy," she demanded.

"Alright, alright," Sirius grumbled. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"Well who is she?"

"Dunno." _Wish I did._

"What's she like?"

"Dunno." _She's just beautifully and simply, Her._

"…well how did you meet?"

"Well we haven't exactly met…" _Until today. But I didn't talk back. Doesn't really count, does it?_

"Sirius Black. Are you stalking this girl?"

"No, _Molly_ ," he retorted. He took another swig of the gin in front of him and swallowed quickly. The gin was a nice change of pace. A tough one to swallow but today he had been thrown for quite a loop, he might as well stick to a different drink choice too.

"I am not stalking her," he continued, "I met her… saw her… as a dog. I was running through the forest near my place, came across a pond one day, and when I went back there another time, there she was. I've seen her since-"

"How often?"

"It varies. It's just when I run into her." _Though I am always trying to run into her._

Remus stayed quiet, as he had heard all of this before. He just sampled one of each of the tray Molly had put before him. They were all delightful; Molly was a delightful cook and an even better baker if that was possible. "Remus, try this one," the baker fussed pointing to a small round treat near the edge, "I'm not sure I've gotten it quite right yet. I think something's off."

Remus picked it up unsure of what it was. Chocolate crust obviously, but what lie inside that was unknown. He bit into it. Hard shell, but softer inside, a light creamy fudge. It was delectable. "Delicious, Molly," he said earnestly and honestly, "there's nothing wrong with it."

Molly picked up a small one and popped it into her mouth, and Sirius followed suit. "There's nothing wrong with it; it's fine. It's just not right yet," she fretted.

"Angel, I don't know what you're talking about. It's simply wonderful. What is it exactly? How'd you make this one?" Sirius pried.

"Sirius quit calling me that. I don't know what it's called it's just a dessert… treat. And quit asking me how to bake, I know you don't actually care. And you're not getting out of talking about your girlfriend. How many times have you seen her now?"

"Oh, Angel," he sighed, ignoring her first request. "I dunno… ten, maybe? Twelve, tops." _Twelve. It's twelve. Twelve exactly._

"And you just go and watch this poor girl from the shadows, Sirius?"

"No! I go to watch the pond. It's a nice pond. Sometimes she gets in my line of sight. That's not my fault. But no she hasn't seen me." _That's just a blatant lie. She probably knows that._

"Well you could leave, you know. Wait a second, this girl isn't a girl is she? I mean, a school girl?"

"Molly! I am not like that! How dare you accuse me of such a thing," Sirius replied angrily, finishing off his gin.

"I'm sorry, Sirius," Molly apologized. "You know I don't think of you that way. It's just thirteen years alone. Anyone's bound to latch onto whomever they meet. And you've said yourself you're a social person… Well how old is she anyway?"

He looked at her angrily. _It's no use being angry. She's only looking out for me. Still the implication… But in a few hours I'll be isolated again. I just need to get over it._ "She's definitely, definitely out of school, Molly."

She smiled at him, "Good. How old then?"

"About… mid-twenties, if you're making me guess." _Maybe early twenties…_

Molly mulled this over while she stirred the sauce on the stove again. "Well that's good. Still a decade younger than you, though."

"Angel, I'm not trying to marry the woman. I just enjoy seeing her near the pond. The pond is very nice."

She smiled at him and cocked her head to the side, "because she's pretty?" she prompted.

"What?"

"You 'enjoy seeing her near the pond' because she's pretty?" she urged him.

Sirius smiled down at his empty glass. "Yes, she is very pretty," he stated as he reminisced on the prolonged sight of her he had had just mere hours ago. He had even gotten to hear her speak today. _Something had been off about that, though. Her accent. She didn't sound English. But she didn't sound… not-English. Her accent didn't sound Scottish, did it? It wasn't quite Irish. It had almost an American feel… but no it wasn't really. Seriously. Welsh? No, not welsh. It lacked the telltale signs of being Australian._ By this point his confusion was evident on his face.

"What is it, Pads?" Remus prompted him while he slurped his Butterbeer.

"Her accent…" he responded without thinking, "when she told me-" he quickly cut himself off realizing what he was saying.

Remus choked on his Butterbeer. Molly dropped her spoon. They both whipped their heads in his direction, and when he raised his own he saw four wide eyes staring straight into his. He quickly stood, almost knocking over his chair in the process. He then turned toward the back of the house and briskly walked away, ignoring their simultaneous inquires about his previous words "when she told me."

"Where are you going?!" Molly questioned as he rounded the corner.

"To take a piss!" he called back.

"Sirius! Manners!" Molly shouted.

"You're living amongst the cultured again, Pads! Act like it." Remus bellowed to his friend.

Sirius stopped just steps from the bathroom and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling all at once through his mouth. Putting on a fake sweet smile, he opened his eyes and poked his head around the corner, back into the kitchen.

"Molly, my angel. May I please use your little wizard's room?" he asked sarcastically.

"Seat up," she replied harshly.

He turned to leave again calling over his shoulder, "I wouldn't dream of leaving it down in your house, Angel!"

"And we're not finished discussing your girlfriend! When you come back you're tell

ng us whatever she told you!"

 _Shit. Nice going. Well I was bound to tell Moony, and Molly normally is good judge of things and has a solid opinion. Maybe this'll be good… Merlin, it better be._

Sirius finished up and came back to a conversation between his friends on Molly's second son, Charlie, and his job wrangling, training, and caring for dragons abroad. Sirius sat himself down once again but didn't interrupt, as he didn't want to draw attention to himself and become the focus of the conversation. Or, rather, he didn't want Her to be the focus of the conversation.

However his last wish was soon granted when Remus asked, "Padfoot, what did you mean when you said, 'when she told me'? Have you two spoken? Does she realize who you are?"

Sirius said nothing for a moment, weighing his options before coming to a conclusion. "I'll explain myself. But you two will not interrupt, thank you. And I'll need more gin."

"You've already had four drinks worth in a matter of minutes. You need to lay off," Remus judged.

"I'll be fine. I won't speak until I have two more."

"How about, you tell us or you won't get dinner?" Molly threatened.

"Angel," Sirius said standing again and striding over to her and the sauce. He inhaled; it smelt delicious, as per usual. "I've never known you to threaten your guests before…" Sirius teased.

"Oh, just tell us," she snapped.

Sirius grabbed the bottle of gin off the far end of the table and took it back to his seat, pouring himself another couple fingers worth. "Alright then. So I've seen her…"

"Ten times." Molly quipped.

"Eh, probably more like twelve actually, I think." _Better keep the lying to a minimum around Molly. If the woman can keep track of seven children, my lies are no match._ "And I thought I had been clear on my no interruptions policy, yeah?" Sirius finished.

Molly turned back to her sauce and reached up to her spice cabinet without another word, still listening though.

Sirius continued after a moment, "anyways I thought she hadn't known I was there. But apparently she had at least a few times. So she got up to leave a few minutes before myself today, and turned around. Obviously I hid, but she spoke to me, and before you ask, yes it was clearly to me. She looked directly at me; She told me she knew I wasn't just a dog…" he trailed off.

Remus took his silence as an allowed time for interruption. "She knows you're not a dog… so either she's a crazy muggle or a very bright witch," he offered.

"Very bright witch," Sirius confirmed, "very bright indeed."

"You're sure you aren't just hopeful, Sirius? You don't just really want her to be a witch?" worried Remus.

"She used the word 'animagus' correctly, and Disapparated," he proved.

"Oh. Well… then that's a rather good indicator." Remus chuckled.

"Also… she told me what time she'd be there tomorrow. She wants to talk."

This of course, evoked a new round of concern from his two friends, as they both opened their mouths to speak. "No interrupting!" Sirius commanded, "don't worry I'm not going to show Her who I am. And She doesn't know, either. But I'm going to go. I'm just going to let Her talk to me. See what She has to say while I'm still a dog."

"Sirius, that could be-"

"I don't know, mate-"

He listened to both of them express their concern for his safety and well-being, but he didn't much care. "I'll leave straight away if anything goes awry and never look back," he promised.

They went on arguing for a bit, each making good points and counterpoints. Arthur arrived with a ding of Molly's magical, familial, positional clock, listened for a while to catch himself up on the situation, and dove into the conversation as well. He took each of their opinions and concerns into consideration, but in the end he knew it was his decision. He wanted to go, and even as an escapee, he wasn't much a man to be told he couldn't do something. And on the off chance he was told "no," he was only more eager to do so.

They spent the rest of the evening just being together, enjoying one another's company, and laughing. Sirius didn't often get to do those things, so they made a bit of a production of it. They ate. They drank. They were merry. But, oh boy, did Sirius drink…


	3. oo3

Sunlight streamed in through the curtains across Sirius' curls, which were strewn about his pillow. He began to awaken and immediately regretted it. He squeezed his eyes shut, which made the room delightfully dark but inadvertently made his headache even more pronounced. _Ah, why did I drink so much?_

The night before he had finished Molly and Arthur's gin after promising to replace it the next week, and dove into numerous bottles of wine with the three of them. He had gotten in late and promptly fallen into a deep slumber. "I'm never getting out of bed," he vowed, his own soft words tightening his head further, as he thought back to yesterday.

Yesterday. He smiled. It had been nice to see Her after a three day fast. Hell, he had heard her! She had actually spoken. Not just spoken, even, but spoken to him. She had even said… His eyes flew open, no longer paying any attention to the amount out sunlight stabbing into his head. _SHIT._ _What time is it?! Oh, fuck. Just fuck. Oh Merlin, I'm going to be late and I am so sloppily hungover and I'm going to be late and I need to shower and I'm going to be late…_

She huffed worriedly as her left foot, crossed over her right outstretched in front of her, shook absentmindedly. She fought the urge to lean forward and shift her weight from both her hands behind her to one, so she could check her watch for the umpteenth time since she had arrived that morning. _Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I shouldn't have said anything. I knew it! I knew I would scare him away. I should've just held onto the listening and his not exactly knowing that I knew he was here…_

She tried to be patient. She tried to reason with herself, _regardless of him, it's beautiful here. Even if he doesn't show, I should just relax and enjoy this; the rest of the day is going to be crazy. I'll need some peace of mind if I'm going to get through it._

She looked up towards the clouds and brought her hands in front of her. She fought with the clasp of her watch and by the time she had decided that the cloud above her looked nearly identical to her absent friend, she got it off and placed it face down in the grass. She struggled not to check the time, and forced herself to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings.

The flowers were blooming beautifully; the wind was streaming soundlessly but steadily through all her favorite trees; and the animals were living their lives without a care in the world. Still, her mind wouldn't stray from her missing companion. _Okay. RELAX._ She laid back, closed her eyes, and made herself take some deep breaths. _In, out, one. In, out, two. In, out, three. In, out…_

Out of nowhere, footsteps. No, not footsteps, more like an intense galloping. Coming straight for her. She sat up and whipped halfway around to stare into the woods towards where the sound was coming from. After a moment the perpetrator announced himself. She couldn't help but smile.

A large black dog sped out from between the trees, slowed and stopped just steps from her. She noticed something in his mouth. Parchment? He walked gingerly up to her and set it down in her lap, just above her left knee, and backed away. He flopped down a ways away and panted heavily.

She couldn't help but smile, laugh even. "Relax, there," she chuckled, "breathe." She picked up her watch and fastened it once again to her wrist. Then she looked down at the token from her friend.

It wasn't exactly parchment. It was an envelope, though presumably filled with parchment. On the front it simply said, " _For you."_

The dog was still trying to recover from his mad dash to the pond, but was watching her intently all the while. The envelope wasn't sealed, so she slowly removed the parchment, unfolded it, and began to read aloud:

 _Dear beautiful woman by the pond,_

 _I am so very sorry for my lateness. I awoke much later than I meant to in trying to meet you here. Nevertheless, I am here now. I apologize for the fact that I cannot tell you who I am. I don't know how much I will be able to communicate with you, as I cannot speak, but I am very curious as to what you have to say, and I will try my best to answer you._

 _P.S. – Pure happenstance that we met; I'm purely happy that we've continued meeting._

It was signed with a large paw print. She became silent for a moment after reading. His mind began to wander, _what did she think? What will she say? Will she stay? Will she go? Say something!_ She stood. _Shit. She'll be going then._ She grabbed her bag and began walking towards the forest. After several steps the dog still hadn't moved. "Well aren't you coming with?" she invited him over her shoulder.

 _No, I don't think I'll be following the crazy girl back into the forest, thank you._

After a few more steps she sat down in the shade, against the trunk of the beech tree. _Oh, that's all you were doing. All right then._ The dog got up and followed, lying down next to her.

"You're bound to melt if we stay out there in the sun," she continued as she procured a small bowl and bottle of water from her large shoulder bag. She poured the water into the bowl, "drink," she instructed the dog.

Of course, he didn't. _She can't tell me what to do. She doesn't even know who I am. Blimey, if she knew she was telling the Wizarding World's number one fugitive to drink out of a bowl… she'd be heading for the hills. Actually, maybe not. She's something else._

"Oh, come on, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I just don't want you dyin' or passin' out on me, boy," she reasoned with him. _Dyin'? Passin'?_ _Boy? Is that… I'm not very familiar, but how they talk in the southern United States?_ "I won't even watch if it's embarrassing or emasculating or whatever," she said turning away and giving her attention to the letter once more.

"'Beautiful woman by the pond,' eh?" she smirked.

 _Thought you might like that bit,_ he thought as he drank, _wait, "'eh?'" Are you Canadian? You have the most distinctly ambiguous accent ever…_

"I'll have you know, I never get tired of hearing that. Not so much 'the pond' bit. That doesn't usually come up, but the 'beautiful' part? Yeah, that part's still not old yet."

She read through the letter again, hearing him drink. "You can't tell me, or you just won't tell me who you are?" she questioned as she turned to look at him. She looked back at the letter, "never mind, you drink, we'll figure that one out in a minute or so. But this end bit, I'm wondering if you've put it here so that I'll overlook you being late. Which I suppose isn't really something you need to be sorry for, you never said you'd be here at any certain time, I just left it open ended with when I'd be here… Anyways I like this part, 'pure happenstance that we met; I'm purely happy that we've continued meeting,'" she looked over at him again with a small smile as he had finished the water. "I must say I'm inclined to agree."

 _Oh wipe that dopey smile off your face; you look like an idiot,_ she told herself. "So anyways, I suppose you're right. It will be pretty hard for you to communicate with me as a dog. But I understand that you don't want to show yourself as a person quite yet," she continued logically. "But I figure yes or no type questions, bark once for 'yes,' twice for 'no?' Get to know each other a little bit? I mean more than just watching me can do anyways," she ended with a smirk.

A soft "bark" was his response. _Yes._

She smiled, "perfect."

She leaned backwards, her back pressing against the twisted trunk and thought where to begin. _I suppose I can just jump in anywhere…_

"Well first things first, it's freezing in the shade. I know it's hot to you, so you lie on the edge of the shade and I'll lie on the edge of the sunshine? That alright?"

Another soft "bark" from the black dog elicited another smile from the woman and they got up to move, lying down in their respective spots. She lay down on her back, placing her bag under head to serve as a pillow. It propped her head up so that she could look at the dog. He lay on his stomach facing her, so that they cold easily see each other.

They just looked at each other for a long second as he waited for her to begin. She turned away from he and looked out towards the pond. "So I looked you up."

 _Whoa, wait. You know who I am? No, there's no way. Absolutely not. No._

"Well I tried to anyways."

 _Didn't succeed is what I'm hearing. That's better._

"I looked up all registered Animagi in England. There aren't many, and you're not on there. No big black dogs. No dogs at all, actually. So then I tried Scotland, Whales… nothing. Tried Ireland. Thought I'd found you, actually. There was a small black dog listed, and I thought maybe the official who wrote the description was just not very good at relative sizes, but it turned out that Animagus was a woman. And you're clearly a man.

"So that leaves me with assuming that you are, in fact, unregistered. Correct?" she finished tearing her eyes from the pond and looking back at him now.

A soft "bark" confirmed her logical work over the past week or so.

"Good."

He cocked his head to the side. _Good?_

She smiled again and shrugged, "I like being right." She refocused her brain and with it her face. "But that brings me to another question. I've been trying to figure out how old you are. If you've managed to become an Animagus without the help and regulation of any Ministry, I assume you're out of school?"

Once again, a light "bark" from the dog. _Though I did do this while still in school._

"Alright. But you've hidden yourself well and that takes a lot of effort and concentration and the like, especially in the heat. So I figure you can't be over fifty at the most, probably much younger. Am I right?"

 _You're pretty sharp, I suppose._ "Bark."

"Are you… older than twenty?"

"Bark."

"Older than twenty-five?"

"Bark."

"Younger than forty?"

"Bark."

"See I knew you'd be way younger than fifty."

The dog started pawing at her arm gently but repeatedly. She looked at him intently, "What is it?"

 _How old are you though?_

"See this is the problem with you as a dog. I have no idea what you're trying to say," she looked at him sadly. "I'm going to finish this question if you'll let me, and then I'll try to figure it out… Younger than thirty-five?"

 _Barely._ "Bark."

"Hmm… I really want to get this next one right," she thought out loud with a gleam in her eye.

 _You really do like being right, don't you, love?_

"You're either in your late twenties or early thirties… which is it?" she thought out loud again for a moment.

"Are you in your late twenties?"

For the first time, he barked twice. _If only, darling. Prison took those from me._

"No!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed at him.

 _Merlin, beautiful. Didn't think my age would be such a big deal for you. I'm only trying to be friends…_

"Sorry, that was insensitive. I'm not upset you're in your thirties. I'm not upset about that at all. I just really do have a thing about being right."

 _I'll say, darling._ He smirked. Well, as much as you can as a dog.

"Plus I really thought I had that one… Well I'm not sure how much age transpires from human form to Animagus form, but it doesn't show. You could pass for a dog in your late twenties if you wanted," she joked, smirking, eyes sparkling.

 _Merlin's pants, that smirk is just to die for._ He pawed at her arm again, tapping it three times, then four. He paused while she looked at him confused. Then he did it again. Three times. Pause. Four times. _I'm thirty-four._ He prayed she would figure it out.

She sighed and so did he. Then it dawned on her. "Three. Four. …are you thirty-four?" she asked.

 _There we go, princess._ "Bark."

"Ah, I see! Very nice." He placed his paw back on her again and did his best to shake her. _How old are you? I have a feeling it's a decade younger than my age. Maybe eleven years…_

"I'm not sure what you're asking... Oh! My age?"

He barked once happily.

"Oh," she laughed. Then she challenged, "guess."

He tapped twice, then three times.

"Twenty-three? Nope. Don't try to flatter me. Come on, guess for real."

 _That was a real guess._ He slid his paw up her arm towards her elbow, then back down towards her hand, _older or younger, love?_

"Uh… is that 'higher or lower'? Higher. Er, well, older really, I suppose."

He tapped out twice, then four times.

"Not twenty four," she confirmed.

 _Really? I seriously didn't think you'd be older than that..._ He pawed "twenty-five" as his next answer. Which she quickly denied as well with a quick, "try again!"

 _You really don't look past mid-twenties, hun._ He tapped her six times.

"Well I'm not six, hun," she joked with the dog.

He pushed her arm with his nose. _Come on, you know what I mean._

"Oh, you meant twenty-six?"

 _Yes, you smart arse._

"Yes. I am currently twenty-six," she confirmed for the canine. "So that makes me… eight years younger than you. That's not too far at all."

 _Not something I'm too upset to hear from a beautiful girl._

"So it seems you've run here every time I've seen you. I assume you can't live too far then… Have you always lived in London? Or near it, maybe?"

 _That's a… complicated question, miss. I mean, grew up here, yes, but spent seven school years in Scotland, and nearly twelve years in Azkaban. But all in all, I suppose most of my time has been spent here, and I do leave here again now._

After a long pause to sort all that out, he affirmed her question with a single "bark."

"Long pause. Complicated answer, then?"

He barked once again immediately.

She laughed. "I can understand that."

He pawed her wrist again lightly. _And yourself?_

"Me? Well I've lived… not too far from here for the past… let's see, it's been four years now. Before that… elsewhere. Moved around a bit as a kid."

 _Elsewhere? Mysterious one, aren't you, princess?_ He cocked his head to the side to show her he was confused. Interested.

"That's a whole lifetime of stories…" she tapered off, looking down at her fingers. She quickly refocused on the Animagus' face, "longer story than I can finish today anyways. Short version is I've live in a fair few different places."

 _Yep, definitely mysterious, beautiful. Though that could explain the ambiguous accent…_

She stared back at the sky for a time before picking up his letter once again.

"'Beautiful woman by the pond,'" she read again out loud.

 _You really like that, huh, sweetheart? Glad I bothered to include it instead of just scrawling out the rest of the note._

She smirked and looked back down at him. "Ya know, I've never been flirted with by a dog before," she challenged, "I mean, assuming you are flirting there. Are you?"

He wasn't sure how to answer. _Not easy to flirt as a dog. And I shouldn't even be flirting with you. I'm a convict. Innocent albeit, but nevertheless, convicted. But yes, love, I am marginally flirting with you. Bare with me, I'm a little out of my element. And a little out of practice._ He stayed silent.

"No answer then? So either you are but you shouldn't be… wife?" she questioned.

 _No, sweetheart, not even close._ Two barks.

"No? Fiancé then?"

 _Don't have one of those either._ Two more barks.

"No again. Girlfriend?"

 _I wish, love._ An additional two barks.

"Boyfriend? Husband?"

 _Not really my thing, gorgeous._ Two barks again.

"Not attached in any way?"

Two barks.

"Hmm. So then you are flirting but…" she mulled it over. "It's just odd because you're a dog to me?"

 _And a convict. Dog and convict. Really, love, you should stop wasting your time with me. Go find yourself a nice, simple man._ Still, he barked once.

"I see. You know, you could fix that by just showing me who you are," she quipped.

He just gazed at her. _Not going to happen unfortunately, sweetheart._

"I get it. You like being shrouded in mystery. That's fine." _I kinda like the challenge anyway._ "Just don't expect me to tell you anything about myself that you won't tell me about yourself. That fair?" she asked closing her eyes at the end.

He barked once. _I don't love it, gorgeous, but I'll agree to that._ She smiled, her eyes still closed. "Good."

She sighed and opened them after a moment in order to check her watch. _Yep. I'll have to be leaving soon. Tiffany will be freaking out already._ "I hate to say this, but I'll have to be going soon."

He sighed. _Oh, love. I wish I hadn't been late._

"Oh, don't sigh…" she lightly scolded. Then something dawned on her. "I don't know your name."

 _Well of course not, gorgeous. …but then again I don't know yours either._

"I mean obviously I don't know your name, that's sort of the point of the dog thing, isn't it? But I don't even have a substitute name for you. A stand in until you give in and show me who you are."

She sat up. So did he. "I'll figure something out before next time I see you."

 _All right, darling. I'll figure something out for you too._

"We also need to figure out a better way to communicate… If you'll come see me again. Will you?"

"Bark." No hesitation.

"Fantastic," she smiled. "Well… when then? Are you free tomorrow?" she paused, cocked her head to the side, scrunched her face a bit, and bit her lip slightly. "Was that too eager?" She smiled again shrugging, "actually, I don't care. This is fun. Are you free tomorrow?"

 _Damn, you're cute. Oh Merlin, look at me. Using the word "cute." Still. She absolutely is. And she likes spending time with me? That. That is new, at least lately._

He barked once. _I'm free, pretty much all the time._

She smiled wider, "great. Morning again or afternoon? I mean it's cooler in the morning, but if you don't wake up well and have to sprint here again, that might not even matter," she said a smile spreading across her face, turning into a full blown smirk by the end.

He pushed her shoulder with his nose again, _alright, sassy. I see how it is. I appreciate a girl who can poke fun at me though._

"Alright, alright, so morning or afternoon? I'll have to leave by 3 at the latest."

He raised his paw and began tapping her hand. After a few she started counting them out loud. "…seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve." He stopped. Then tapped once more.

"Twelve? Or did you change your mind to one?"

He did it again. She counted out loud. Twelve, pause, and one.

"I don't…" she trailed off exasperatedly, "12:30?"

"Bark!" _See, we're better at this communicating without talking thing than we realize, princess._

"Alright, I can do that." She checked her watch and groaned, "I've really got to go."

She sat up and he followed suit. She gathered up her bag as he whined. _No, stay here. Stay with me._

She held up her hands defensively, "hey, don't complain. It's not my fault!" She smirked again, "maybe don't be late next time."

 _HA. I write you a nice note, you assure me there's no need to be sorry, and then you just throw it all back in my face. Feisty one, aren't you? I really wish I wasn't so into that…_

They continued just looking at one another for a short time. "I really do need to leave. Now I'm going to be the late one," she fretted.

 _Happens when you're in the presence of such a charming man, love._ He leaned forward and quickly kissed her cheek. Well, licked it. But he was careful not to slobber on her.

She giggled and scrunched her face up momentarily again before smiling at him again. "It's a little difficult to get to know you, but you seem sweet."

She stood, but bent down and kissed him on the top of his head. He closed his eyes and relished in this affection so sparingly granted to him. Her lips were so gentle.

"Your fur is softer than I thought it'd be," she said pulling away. She had lingered to appreciate his soft coat of fur. He didn't mind in the slightest. _Honestly, you feel like a puppy. You're so cute. Oh gosh, I can't start thinking of you as cute, that's so not me._

"By the way, it's kind of difficult to kiss a dog on the cheek. Just in case that's any incentive to reveal yourself!" she said lugging her bag onto her shoulder.

 _Oh, it is. I wish…_

"12:30 then."

"Bark."

"See you," she waved and Disapparated.


	4. oo4

After Disapparating from the pond, the woman quickly steadied her footing on her new terrain, and opened her eyes to see the path winding up to her home. She readjusted her bag to her other shoulder and began the short walk up the dirt lane, losing herself in replaying her short meeting with her canine companion.

She had gotten some of her questions about him answered, but their time together had actually sparked even more. Nonetheless, he was fun. He was sweet. He was… compelling. He was a dog… But somewhere in there was a man. A thirty-four year old man who had lived in London… most of his life. A man who was an unregistered Animagus. A man who wanted to see her again. Tomorrow, actually. And a man who had very soft fur… _I bet that translates into him having really soft skin. Or, even better, really great hair…_

 _Plus for such a large dog, he's quite gentle._ He had pawed at her forearm, tapped out messages on her wrist and her palm, nudged her shoulder with his nose, and even kissed her cheek. _Alright, he licked my cheek, but he's a dog; that's a little unavoidable. And he had even done that delicately._

 _And I've never seen a dog with grey eyes. Ever. I mean I guess it's possible that they exist, but I wonder if that's because it's just his real eye color… It's a nice color._

 _Another interesting parallel: big dog, soft bark. That was odd, but nice._ Not like most of the other men she had known before. _Who is this guy?_

She had become rather lost in her own thoughts. So much so in fact, that as she neared her front porch she didn't bother to notice someone slumped lazily in her white oak rocking chair. As the stranger heard her approaching, scuffling up the rocky lane, she opened her eyes from her slumber-like state and addressed the woman, "Oh good, you're finally back! You scared me half to death. I thought something terrible had happened to you."

The woman was jerked out of her daydreams and towards the source of the words. She checked her watch, "Finally? I'm not that late. And you still felt perfectly at home enough to go into my house, prepare the last of my iced tea, and drink both the glass for yourself and the one you poured for me?" she asked gesturing to two empty glasses on the small, sun-bleached, rickety, side table.

"No… those were both for me," the stranger informed the woman taking a sip from another glass, "this one was for you. But yes, I'm finishing it."

The woman rolled her eyes, "Tiffany!" she scolded. "Is this the end of my tea? Oh, give me that," she commanded, taking the glass and quickly drinking it just to spite her.

The stranger, Tiffany, used her silence of downing half a glass of iced tea to question her friend, "why are you so happy?"

"What do you mean?" the woman shot back upon gulping the last of the drink.

"I mean when you were walking up here, you looked happy."

"Is it so weird to be happy?"

"For most people," Tiffany explained, "no. For you, it sort of is. Lately."

"Rude," the woman shot with her eyebrows raised.

"The truth isn't always pretty," she said sighing but with a smile, "now why are you so happy?"

"I am generally happy."

"Sure, when you're in the kitchen, or messing with the piano, or with your nephews…" It dawned on Tiffany that a fair few things made the woman happy. "Alright, let me rephrase. Why were you so smiley? You definitely aren't a smiley person."

The woman brushed it off, "we don't have time for this pointless interrogation. We have a lot to do before our meeting at one," she said rummaging through her bag.

She pulled out a long piece of parchment. "We've got to get to the market. This shopping list is longer than Merlin's beard, and I'm adding tea to it now, which you're going to pay for," she informed her friend.

"Oh, you don't even like tea. You're not even properly English," Tiffany complained.

"I like tea from time to time, and I've been English for the past four years."

"You weren't raised in England though; you don't have a proper appreciation for tea," Tiffany huffed.

"Tiffany, tea isn't even English. You guys stole it from Asia hundreds of years ago, and just rebranded it as yours," she quipped. "And either way, you're buying me more.

"Anyways," she continued as Tiffany failed to answer her, "we need to go to the market and see Kostya. So, you go to Kostya's; it won't take as long. That way you can see Ian earlier."

Tiffany immediately protested, "oh, please don't make me go to Kotsa's-"

"Kostya's," the woman corrected adamantly.

"I never know what he's saying, he just goes on and on in Turkish—"

"Tiffany, you know very well the man is not Turkish."

"And it's always so awkward…"

"All you have to do is give him the list, and smile and nod while he talks and gets the order together, then double check it, pay him, and it'll be brought over later. Just be polite! Or talk, he's perfectly happy to listen, even if he doesn't understand what you're saying. He's just very sociable. And Anton knows what you're saying."

"He adores you though, and he'd love to see you much more than me," Tiffany countered.

"You realize Kostya's will take much less time than the market will. That way you can go see Ian," she explained. "You _love_ Ian," she teased.

"I do not _love_ Ian," Tiffany shot back.

"You love his hair. And his eyes."

"I do love his eyes…" Tiffany smiled dreamily. "Still I think you should go to Kotsa's—"

"Kostya's!" the woman corrected angrily.

Tiffany ignored her, continuing, "and then meet me at the market to help me finish up, then we'll see Ian together."

"Fine."

"But first, why were you so smiley earlier?"

The woman rolled her eyes and chuckled as she handed the shopping list to her friend. Then she turned and started down the steps to accomplish their plans. "Just a good morning is all," she answered.

"But why?!" Tiffany pried.

The woman didn't stop walking but smiled widely to herself. "Pure happenstance," she called over her shoulder, and continued on her way.

She followed the path the other way from where she had come, then peeled off into a field. She walked and walked as the grass got taller and taller, jumped a short wooden fence, and soon came upon a small row of shops.

She entered one with the front windows covered in red and white posters offering various deals of the week. As she pushed the heavy door open a bell sounded and a man behind the counter turned around.

Simply put, the man looked terrifying. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall with dark hair streaked with gray covering his visible skin: head, face, forearms, even the backs of his hands and knuckles didn't escape his tresses. Furthermore, the man was wide enough to threaten any doorframe in England, both ways if you considered his height. As he turned around his terror continued. The hair continued, coating his face in a dense beard and not sparing his eyebrows in its thickness. In his hand he clutched a large wide-bladed knife, and his entire front was coated in a layer of blood, some fresh, some older.

When he saw the woman who had enter his domain, he spread his arms, raising the knife, and bellowed, "KOSHENYA!"

The woman smiled as he set the knife down and whipped off his apron, tossing it into the corner. "Lysytsya!" she chimed with a wide grin as she opened her arms as well. He scooped her up and hugged he with all his might. She laughed as he tested the strength of her rib cage. He set her down again and kissed her on each cheek before taking her face in his massive hands and smiling down at her.

"Is good to see you," he assured her in an accent as thick as his hair, "has been too long."

"I know, Kostya, I know," she said abandoning her nickname for him and using his given name instead.

A teenage boy poked his head out from the back room, "Dad, that's not her name."

"Hey, Anton," the woman greeted. He greeted her as well.

Kostya turned to his son to scold him and he disappeared into the back again.

"Now, moya divchyna, what for you today?"

She handed over the list and settled herself onto a stool next to the counter. They quickly began jabbering on in Ukrainian as the butcher gazed over the list, tied on a new apron, and wielded his knife once more. They caught up and laughed as he filled the order, hacking off portions of beef, slicing cuts of pork, even carving sections of venison for the woman, among other things.

She pointed to a few headless, de-feathered birds in the window. "Kachka?" she questioned, inquiring as to whether or not they were in fact duck.

"Tak, moya divchyna!" he affirmed her proudly. She was right.

By this point Anton had finished his duties in the back, sank onto the stool next to her and slumped against the wall. "Dad, why do you never call her by her name?"

He looked at his son as if he was ridiculous. "Because!" he reasoned. "She is my 'divchyna!'"

She smiled, enjoying being right about the duck, and not minding the "daughter" nickname either, and requested a few of the birds as well.

"Come for dinner tonight," she requested of the two men.

"No, no. You not need to cook for us," Kostya declined.

"Oh, please?" she pleaded. "It's Tuesday; it's a slow night. I'd like the company. Anton wants to."

Anton nodded enthusiastically, and although Kostya didn't understand all of what the woman was saying, he did understand the nodding.

"I'll make kruchenyky…" she offered. "And maybe pyrohy if I have time!" _And I'll make sure I have time._

That got him. "Okay, we come near close," Kostya leveled with her.

"Great!" she smiled.

"Oh, and—" Anton started.

She cut him off, "I know, I know, no mushrooms in yours," she finished for him. "Bring all this by around two or so for me?" she asked referring to her massive order.

"Of course," Anton answered.

She paid, refusing an arbitrary discount just for being his friend and loyal customer, and thanked them both. After bidding them farewell until that night, was on her way to the market to meet Tiffany.

Upon her arrival at the market they quickly finished up the shopping, lugged their purchases to the back door of the kitchen, and settled into lunch with Ian. Ian and the woman quickly got through the business side of the lunch, and then she quickly departed in order to let Ian and Tiffany enjoy each other's company.

She went into the kitchen and began to prepare for the dinner rush. It was a lot of work to run a restaurant, but she was always up for a challenge, whether it be feeding dozens of tables a night or figuring out a particularly mysterious black dog.

The rush came in a frenzy of dishes, orders, sizzling, heat, a cascade of ingredients, focus, and many shouts and laughs among the kitchen staff.

Before she knew it, she was being summoned, "Chef!"

"Yes!"

"Someone's here for you!" a host yelled back.

"Which someone?" she asked suspiciously.

"Two someones. Tall someones. Do you want me to get their names?" the host asked leaning in the kitchen doorway, trying not to get hit by trays being hurried in and out by the wait staff.

"Kostya and Anton!" she exclaimed. She hurried her apron off, washed her hands, and glided out the door.

Her eyes fell upon them and she smiled. She hugged each of them in turn. "Koshenya," Kostya used his customary nickname greeting for her as he hugged and kissed her cheek again.

"Lysytsya," she cooed back as she kissed his cheek as well.

Anton greeted her with a quick "hey" and an equally quick hug.

She walked them over to a table and asked a waiter to grab them drinks, on the house of course, while she finished up their food.

She went back into the kitchen and arranged the kruchenyky on two plates with sides of steamed vegetables and rice when they were ready. She poured mushroom sauce over one plate and brought them out.

Handing the mushroom-less plate to Anton, and the other to Kostya, she told them she hoped they would enjoy it and retuned to the kitchen to finish the sweet pyrohy. She had filled them with strawberries, and made a sweet dipping sauce as well. She left them warming and went out to chat with her friends.

"Koshenya, kruchenyky is delicious!" Kostya complimented her.

"It really is," Anton confirmed.

"Oh thank you, I'm glad you enjoy it," she answered, sitting down. They all chatted a bit longer before she left to retrieve desert for them.

She set down a huge platter of the sweet dumplings. They each took one and Kostya changed the subject.

"Koshenya, when you find a man? When you give Kostya grandchild?"

"Dad, she's not your kid," Anton disputed.

"Durnytsya," he answered. Nonsense.

"I'm not sure, Kostya. Maybe not for a while," she answered his question. She smiled, but she was sad to disappoint him.

He shrugged, "is okay. Koshenya, men are dog."

She smiled at the unintentional coincidence of his words and experience earlier that morning.

"All men?" she asked still smiling.

"All men," he reinforced. "Dogs."

"But are all dogs bad?" she challenged.

He pondered her question. "Lots are bad," was the answer he settled on.

"Some are good?" she said latching onto the possibility.

"…few," he said wondering where she was headed.

"How about, one? One good dog out there somewhere? For me?"

He pondered her question taking a long swig of his drink. "Yes." He agreed, "one good dog. For you."

She grinned again.

He laughed at her, "you smile lots today. Why?"

"Just a good day, I guess."

"Why good day?" he pried further.

She sighed still smiling, "pure happenstance."

He looked at her confused. That wasn't a phrase he was familiar with in English. She shrugged, not sure how to translate it into Ukrainian for him.

Anton spoke to his father, explaining. Then ended it again by repeating her, "pure happenstance."

"Pure happenstance!" Kostya repeated, raising his glass.

They all clinked glasses, drank to the toast, and devoured the dessert in front of them.

They took their time eating and after they finished the men left. The woman cleared their dishes, the last in the restaurant, and closed up the restaurant.

She crawled into bed that night still whirling from her nonstop day. It had been a very good day, just very busy. She glanced at the envelope on her bedside table. In the moonlight it was hard to see much of anything, but she could just make out the words " _for you"_ on the front. Her hand reached out towards it, but she stopped herself. She withdrew her hand and tore eyes away to look at the stars instead. _I can't read it again. I need to knock myself down a notch. I'll see him in just half a day._

She pulled open her bedside drawer and placed the envelope inside so as not to tempt herself. The stars outside her bedroom window drew her attention once again, and she gazed at them until she fell into a seamless sleep.


	5. oo5

"Oh, Moony, this is hopeless," Sirius whined as he flopped down onto his old ragged couch. His grimy living room was littered with, well litter from years of neglect, but over the past few hours dozens of parchments and quills had been added to the mix.

Sirius had begged Remus to help him find a way to communicate better with his friend. Remus had obliged to help and they had spent the past few hours charming various materials in order to alleviate his problem. It wasn't easy.

Their end game, seeing as speaking was out of the question, was for Sirius to be able to write while still dog. He had tried to hold quills with his paws; it was no good. He simply didn't have enough grip to hold the thin quill. So they tried Quick-Quotes Quills. They float so gripping them wasn't an issue, but Sirius still couldn't speak as a dog, so that was out too.

That lead to them taking a Quick-Quotes Quill and trying to alter the charm on it so that it worked with thought as opposed to speech. It wasn't easy. They were programmed for speech, and very used to that. Forcing a Quick-Quotes Quill to change its methodology was not an easy process. It kept trying to revert back, making Remus perform some very intense magic to keep it in check. Asking the quill to read Sirius' thoughts as a dog? Well, that was an added challenge.

Sirius had spent hours as a dog willing the quill to write out even the simplest of sentences. He had gotten the quills to roll around the floor fairly easily. Lifting them into the air completely was a little tougher. Getting the point to dance across the parchment, that was interesting. It took great focus, and even then he had only been able to manage great sweeping yet shaky lines. Nothing that even marginally resembled letters or words, let alone coherent, cohesive phrases or sentences.

"You've really come along though, mate. Think of where we were four or five hours ago," Remus encouraged his friend.

"Moons, think of how much further I need to get. And I don't even have one more hour to spare on this," Sirius worried.

"Yes, Pads, I realize, but think of what you're trying to do. You're basically asking a common quill to perform mild Legilimency on you, while you perform a mild Imperius Curse on it. Without a wand, mind you, and in your Animagus form. That's highly complex and you're rather out of practice. You should be proud of what you've accomplished," Remus reminded.

"Moony. I don't care about being accomplished. I just want to be able to talk with her," Sirius griped.

Remus chuckled. "Once," he muttered under his breath.

"What?" Sirius asked, annoyed.

"Uh, I just said 'once' was all," Remus replied.

"'Once' what?"

"Just 'once' is all," he reasoned. "As in, you've talked with this woman once."

Sirius shrugged, "yeah, I know."

Remus raised his eyebrows at his friend and stared for a moment smiling.

"So what?" Sirius asked confused.

"You do realize whom you remind me of, right?" Remus asked as though it was a mindless question.

Sirius said nothing.

"James, Sirius. You remind me of fifteen-year-old James. Smitten. But James had known Lily for what was going on five years. And you've talked to this woman, once," he explained.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. I am not smitten," he replied seriously. Then his face spread into a cocky smile that had once been so at home on his face. Half a lifetime ago. "The Sirius Black, is not so ordinary to be smitten with some woman. Especially after one meeting, Moony. Merlin, don't get your wand in a knot."

Remus didn't believe a word of it. "Then why are you so desperate to talk to her?" he laughed at his friend, leaning backwards against the back of the grungy couch and crossing his hands behind his head.

Sirius just shrugged, "'cause she's a hell of a lot more interesting than you, mate..."

"I doubt she's more interesting than man who managed to get the best marks in our class, despite becoming a wolf once a month," he pitted.

"...and way more fun to look at too."

Remus laughed, "you would be interested in that."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, you always had some pretty girl around at school. Even in hiding I guess it was only a matter of time until you found another."

"Oh please, this isn't like that at all."

"Oh, really?" Remus challenged.

"Yes, really," he said with a glint in his eye. He sighed and focused his gaze on the ceiling. He held up one finger, "first, I'm talking to her as a dog, Remus. I mean, it isn't easy; it's nearly impossible. I can't even actually speak. I can basically say yes or no, or make it known that something's on my mind until she guesses it. If she can guess it. Somehow she's still interested enough and patient enough to try to get to know me."

He added a second finger up in the air, "second, the whole dog game is totally new. None of the old charming tricks work. There's no winking, no smirking, no smoldering, no hair flipping. Trust me, you can hardly appear charming when you have to pant just to kept from overheating." He shrugged a little defeated, "I have to throw out the entire playbook from school and start from scratch. So it's not like she's fazed like girls in school were. This used to be easy, but not anymore."

He abandoned his numbering system and began thinking out loud with his friend. "It's a difficult situation, Moony. It's awkward to a point. I mean she's befriending a dog... but she still wants to see me. She still wants to get to know me, even though it _is_ difficult and awkward. But it's real... I mean it's not. It's not at all. I'm a dog to her."

He sighed as he thought about her compared to the girls her kept company with in school. "But, I mean, it's not superficial like it's always been before for me. I mean most girls have been into me because I can play them pretty well. I can't play this girl. I don't even really want to... I just want to figure her out."

He paused for a moment. Remus stared at him a little stunned. This was a very different way for Sirius to talk about a woman.

He smiled and nodded to Remus, "You'd like her, Moony, she's witty and quick and a little sassy, and she's... well, cute. And she's intriguing. I mean that has to be a woman worth getting to know, at least a little... right, Moony?"

"You know," he conceded picking up a regular old quill and parchment, "she just might be."

He handed the supplies to his friend.

"What's this for?" Sirius questioned.

"You'll have to be leaving soon. We're not going to perfect this in time, so write her something now if you'd like and take it with you. I'll try to make this work this evening if I can."

He stood to leave as Sirius settled in to write another letter to his beautiful woman by the pond.

"Tell your... 'friend'... I say 'hello,'" Remus teased on his way out of the room.

"She is just a friend!" Sirius insisted.

Remus turned around in the doorway. "Padfoot, not if you talk about like that she isn't. You've got it bad," he smiled as he walked out of the house.

Sirius rolled his eyes, but smiled all the while. He looked down at the parchment and quill in his hands.

 _What to say..._

Several minutes later he had added many crumpled parchments to various corners and spaces of the room trying to perfect his letter.

He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and gave it one more go. A smile slowly spread across his face as he wrote, and by the end he simply could not force the corners of his mouth back down. He folded it carefully and slid it into an envelope.

 _Now, how to address it... She had said she was going to figure out something to call me before next time. I should too... "beautiful woman by the pond" is nice, but it is a little long. I don't know much about her, and I don't want to use anything too cliché..._

He sat there for a few more minutes thinking it over. He chose one, though he wasn't totally sure what she would think of it.

He pulled the letter out, and rewrote it one last time on a new sheet of parchment, working the name in. Then he folded his last draft, slid it back into the envelope, and carefully penned the name on the front.

He looked up at the clock. _And I'm late. Again. Nice going, Sirius. Wonderful impression you're making on her._

And with that he set out of Number 12 Grimmuald Place at a gallop towards the pond.


	6. oo6

Sirius huffed and laid his head on the grass between his paws. _Where is she? It has to be well past one o'clock. I thought I was going to be the late one again..._ _Maybe she doesn't want to see me._

He played her words from the previous day over in his head, _"Are you free tomorrow? ...was that too eager? Actually, I don't care. This is fun. Are you free tomorrow?"_

 _Seems like she'd show up... I've never been stood up before. Ignored and brushed off, sure, but not actually stood up. I understand how much it sucks now. I'll give her just a little while longer..._

And he did. He watched two dragonflies chase each other, diving and climbing through the air, out on the pond, and watched the tiny ripples the wind created glide across the surface.

It was hot out, but cool in the shade where he was. As he waited and the sun crept over in the sky, his paw became exposed to the sun. His dark fur quickly heated up and he shimmed over to keep his entire body in the shade.

Sirius watched the clouds drift overhead and sniffed the cornflower his friend seemed to love so much as the breeze blew the scent through the air. Nature began lulling him to sleep.

A crack however made his eyes shoot open again, and he lifted his head as his eyes fell upon the same woman from the day before.

She had a worried look on her face, squinting in the sun. He growled playfully, acting angry at her lateness. She shielded her eyes from the sun and her worried expression faded to a slight smile when she saw noticed him laying in the shade. "Hey, Sparky."

 _Sparky? Is that what you're calling me now?_

"Don't growl and act all upset. I know you're not that mad; your tail is still wagging," she smirked while settling down next to him.

 _Damn. You never miss a beat._

"Nevertheless, I am terribly sorry for being so late. I don't mean to pass the blame, but it wasn't my fault. A friend of mine stopped by my house and refused to leave until... you know, it's actually not that interesting a story, and I've already wasted time being late, so I'm not going to waste anymore, Sparky."

 _Sparky?_ He tilted his head, showing his confusion.

"Oh, yeah. I think I'm going to call you that. Do you want to hear why? It's a bit of a story... but you get to hear about me as a little kid."

He barked once immediately. _Absolutely._

"Alright. So, when I was younger, I always wanted a dog. Never got one. And my sister wanted one too, but we could never agree on what kind we wanted or what color or even what gender. So when it came to thinking up names, you can imagine I'm sure, we never agreed on that either. She wanted a tiny little girl dog she could do basically nothing with to call Sparkles. Can you believe that?" she questioned the dog. "I mean you might as well just get a cat. Cats are pointless. I hate cats. Thank you, for not being a cat."

 _You're welcome, love._

"Anyways, I wanted a really big boy dog I could run around with and rough house with... and I wanted to call him Sparky," she sighed. "And I never got that dog... I never got to name a dog Sparky. So. I'm going to call you that." She paused, and smirked at him, "I'll grant you one concession, if you'd rather be called Sparkles—"

Two loud barks from the dog. _Please, no._

She laughed, "all right, I won't. Promise. ...do you hate it? 'Sparky,' I mean."

"Bark, bark." _No_ , he assured her. _It's sweet that it means something to you. Plus I'm named after a star. Star, spark, that's pretty close. Nice job for not knowing that. Plus there's quite a bit of a spark here... HA, even as a dog I'm quite the riot... even if you don't know it._

"Alright. I'll trust you," she decided. "Not even a little though? I mean you're meant to hate it a little. Just enough to give in and tell me your actual name," she quipped.

 _No such luck, love._

"No note today?" she questioned. "I mean, I wasn't expecting one, but I sort of hoped for one. I really did like the last one, but that's fine."

He looked around. _Where did... I know I brought it!_ He sat up slightly. It was under him. He had shimmied over on top of it without noticing when he was trying to stay in the shade.

He picked it up gingerly in his mouth and held it out to her. She accepted it at once. The smile it provoked was so bright Sirius was sure it could've wilted any amount of Devil's Snare. "Oh, I see, you're just holding out on me until I beg for it, huh? Correct me if I'm wrong, but seeing as you're the dog, shouldn't you be the one begging?" she joked.

 _Oh, you're just too funny._ He shoved his nose into her palm and she laughed, "Just so you know, I don't think I'll ever get sick of the dog humor."

She flipped the envelope over and looked at the dedication on the front. He watched her intently, gauging her reaction. She read it aloud. "Sunshine?" she questioned, amused.

Still smiling she opened it and her new letter aloud:

 _Dear Sunshine,_

 _First off, I hope it's okay that I might start calling you that. Only if you're alright with it. You decide. You said last time you were planning to come up with a name for me in the mean time, so I thought I'd return the favor. I suppose I chose "Sunshine" because, well, you're always sitting in the sunshine, and you look beautiful out there, and because you've brightened up my life lately. It's incredibly corny I realize, so if you hate it I'll think of something else._

 _Second, I am working on a way for us to be able to communicate better. Hopefully before next time._

 _Third, I'd like to elaborate on some of my answers from yesterday. Yes, I am unregistered and I am thirty-four, but I managed to become an Animagus while still in school. Actually, at the age of fifteen. No need to be impressed, love. I grew up in London, which is where I live now, but I attended boarding school, so many years were spent away from London. I might just be flirting a bit. Can you blame me? It's hard not to flirt with a woman as beautiful as you, love. But no, I'm not attached in any way. It's odd to flirt as a dog... don't you think this situation is a little odd? It's very nice, but definitely new._

 _Last, some questions for you. You were very cryptic about where you are from or where you've lived... Care to share? A little? Also, boyfriend? Fiancé? Husband? Anyone? Just curious. Oh, you said something about liking to be right. I feel like there's a story there, or at least an explanation, which I'd love to hear._

 _Truth be told, I'd love to hear anything more about you, Sunshine._

Just as last time, it was signed carefully with a paw print.

"Okay, this might take a while but I'll get through this one thing at a time. Most importantly though, 'Sunshine,'" she started.

She looked up from the letter to meet his eyes. She grinned at him, "I love it. It's..." she shook her head, unsure of how to adequately express herself. "It's not corny; it's sweet and thoughtful and... and I love it."

His heart rose and he slowly let out the nervous breath he'd been holding in. _Not a bad way to start._

A little embarrassed at how enamored she was appearing in that moment, she turned back to the letter. "I certainly like it better than my actual name," she muttered. "How exactly are we going to communicate better? I can't wait to see that. But no pressure if whatever it is doesn't work out, I mean, I'm not doing much to remedy the problem."

 _I hope it works, darling._

"I'm just trying to get you to spend time with me in person. You know, in person in person. As a physical _human_ person," she joked, gleam in her eye. "But if you won't quite yet, I'll take whatever you're coming up with until then."

She paused and looked him directly in the eye. "Sparky?" she asked tentatively.

 _Yes, Sunshine?_

"Are you ever going to show me who you are? Tell me your name?"

He hesitated. _I want to, love. I really do. I just know you'll run and this will all be over. I like this; I don't want to ruin it with you seeing a man who's on a wanted poster._ He barked three times.

"Three barks?" she questioned, amused. "We don't have a set answer for that one. Is that 'maybe'? 'I don't know'? 'Not yet'?"

"Bark." _Something along those lines._

"I can deal with those answers for now."

She raised the letter in front of her again. "Okay there are a lot of things here." She scanned the letter trying to find her place. "...you managed to become an Animagus, without regulation help, at the age of fifteen?" she asked with amazement in her voice. "I hate to admit it, but I actually am very impressed. Wow. I'd love to hear about how and why and what not in another letter, if you'd like to tell me."

She moved on to his next topic: where he lived. "Boarding school, huh? Good or bad experience?" She looked at him waiting for a response.

"Sorry, yes or no questions," she remembered. "Good experience?"

He confirmed it with a bark. _My true home._

"Oh that's wonderful. I wish you could tell me about it. I'd love to hear about teenage Sparky off at boarding school getting into all sorts of mischief."

 _How'd you know I was always getting into mischief?_

"I mean, just assume that if you were turning yourself into a dog at age fifteen, you were probably causing all sorts of trouble for your professors," she smirked thinking about it.

 _Well, you've got that one right, Sunshine._

"Don't worry, I was like that too."

 _Oh, really? Do tell..._

She chuckled when she saw his ears perk up, "I'll get to that later, promise."

Once again, the letter. "Thank you, for the compliment," she tried not break into a huge smile. It wasn't easy. "And yes, this is odd. I've never befriended a dog who's actually a person before. But I don't mind; it's nice. You're interesting, and... anyways I like getting to know you.

"Okay, now for your questions to me. I'm going to answer them a little out of order, 'cause the second one will sort of answer the first one."

She held her right hand out towards him and wiggled her ring finger. A silver ring glinted in the sunlight. "You're not familiar with this, are you?"

 _Sorry, love, can't say that I am..._

She slipped the ring off and held it out in front of him in the shade so he could see it clearly. "Alright, well then here's another story. It's not so much about me though. It's called a Claddagh ring. It's been an Irish tradition for about three hundred years. So that answers your first question; I'm originally from Ireland. Galway, actually. That's where the Claddagh originated too.

"So there's three parts to the ring: the heart, the crown, and the hands. They represent love, loyalty, and friendship. Some Irish women wear them; either they receive one when they come of age, or they're passed down through the family. And how you wear it is actually rather important. It reflects your marital status.

"So it's always worn on the ring finger, but there's four ways," she informed him, modeling each one as she explained it. "If it's worn on the right hand with the crown on top, like towards the wearer's arm so that a potentially interested man sees it right side up, it represents that the woman is single. If it's on the right hand but flipped, so it's upside-down to everyone else, it means the woman is taken and in a relationship. It it's on the left hand, right side up, the woman is engaged, and left hand upside down is married.

"I mean, nowadays a lot of women want diamond engagement rings, so unless it's two people from Galway getting married, and pretty traditional ones at that, it's just turned into a sign for being single or taken... and of course the reminder of love, loyalty, and friendship. But the symbolism and the tradition are nice, I think.

"Anyways, I wear it like this," she stated slipping it back onto her finger. "So yes, I'm single as well."

 _Gorgeous single woman. I think I'm all right with that._ He barked once to show his approval.

"'Yes?'" she questioned. "Does that mean 'good?'"

He barked again.

She laughed, "alright, alright. Well I suppose it is a little interesting that we're both single... but I don't know, maybe you're not showing your face because you've got some sort of patchy balding issue..."

Two barks. _Full head of hair, Sunshine. Which has been quite the hit with women in the past..._

"No? Then you weigh 900 pounds?"

Another two barks. _I'm actually trying to gain healthy wait back after nearly starving in Azkaban._

"No, again? Hmm, you're too cute of a dog to be ugly as a man. I hope you don't mind being called cute... It's your fault really, you chose to be a dog; dogs are cute."

She could swear she saw the dog smile a little.

 _I don't mind hearing that. Not from you._

"I really am curious as to why you won't show your face though. I mean you've clearly seen mine; I just haven't told you my name... Anyways, I suppose I'll leave that alone. Back to your letter."

She scanned down the page again, "you asked where I've lived." She settled back into the grass with her hands behind her head. "Well, I told you, that's a lifetime of stories, because it really is. I've moved a lot. My dad was a... businessman, so it kept it us on the move with wherever he needed to be for his next deal. He always insisted on doing business in person.

"Which means I never had loads of stability. For example I never really went to school, but I was homeschooled sort of. My parents ensured I was educated, both in muggle matters and magically. That lifestyle also means I don't really have a lifelong best friend or anything; all the people closest to me are related to me or I've met in the past few years. Friends kind of came and went for me as a kid because..." she chuckled, "well I came and went.

"But I did get to travel a lot and... Sparky, I don't know how much you've traveled, but the world is an amazing place. So I won't tell you everywhere I've been because that's just tedious, but I'll tell you a couple of my favorites, if you'd like?"

"Bark." _Yes, please, Sunshine._

"Alright, well... I was born in Galway. I lived near there for a good while and I loved it there. That's the last place I lived before moving to my current house too. That being said, I like it here. ...I spent a while in Alabama, in America. Sorry if you know that that's in America... I just know you can't ask so I want to make sure I explain everything. That was really fun. ...Prague is amazing. I actually really liked Iceland.

"Anyways, I've lived on six continents. Been a lot of places. Satisfied?"

He barked once. _I want to hear all of it, but I'll settle with that._

She gazed at him for a moment. "I feel like I'm just talking your ear off... I swear, if you could talk, I wouldn't be talking this much; I'm not normally this annoying."

He put his paw on her elbow to ensure her she wasn't annoying him. He loved learning about her. It calmed her down a bit.

She picked up the letter and held it between them, effectively interrupting their eye contact. Only then did she he let herself smile. _If I keep smiling this much, he's gonna start thinking I'm way too into him. Which... I am a little. But he doesn't need to know that quite yet._

She quoted his letter to him, "' _you said something about liking to be right. I feel like there's a story there, or at least an explanation, which I'd love to hear._ ' Well it turns out we're just delving into my childhood today. Okay so this goes along with the promise I made earlier to tell you about how much of a troublemaker I was as a child. ...honestly, I don't think I ever grew out of that." She smirked, "I still sort of love causing trouble."

 _Finally, a woman after my own heart. I adore Lily, but I always thought she toned James down just a little too much._

"So... oh, I don't know, I guess I just always wanted to prove myself. I loved dares and things. Like if someone ever dared me to do something, anything at all, I did it. Immediately. No questions. I wasn't stupid; I just always wanted to run with the boys, ya know? Plus, I think I mentioned my sister earlier?"

"Bark."

"Right. Well she's a few years older than me and she was 'Little Miss Perfect.' She was always such and suck-up and a goody-two-shoes, especially towards my mom. So if I ever put one toe out of line, she instantaneously was by her side tattling on me. So I figured if she was going to tell on me, I might as well give her something to tell her about. Make it a good story, ya know?"

 _See, Remus? I knew this girl was interesting._

"Anyways, even if someone was daring anyone else to do something... I was either right there doing it with them, or instead of them if they chickened out. I was even that kid who, when things were boring, said things like, 'hey, do you dare me to eat that?' or 'hey, do you think I could jump that? I bet I could...' or whatever. So if no one was daring me to do anything, I was daring myself."

She chuckled, "I'm sure I caused my mother many headaches and raised her blood pressure much higher than it was ever supposed to be. My dad on the other hand, is a very different type of person. He always got a kick out of my sister's stories about my antics. He sort of egged me on a little too. My sort of wild or reckless or fearless side definitely _definitely_ comes from him. He and I are very alike... He was sort of my best friend growing up, I suppose."

 _Well that's something we don't have in common, but I still rather enjoy that._

She smiled reminiscing on her childhood. "I should clarify, not all of these things were outrageous. Some of them were just challenges I obviously couldn't complete or win, like a footrace against a boy three years older than me. But I mean he was thirteen, I was ten. He was at least half a foot taller than me, and I lost by seconds. If he only won by that much, that means I pretty much won, right?"

He barked to verify her opinion. _Obviously, love. What a chump._

"Yeah, see? Thank you. I'll tell you one of the more outrageous ones if you'd like."

He quickly barked and shifted to settle in for another story.

He laughed raising her eyebrows, "comfy?"

"Bark."

"Okay." She turned around and flipped over onto her stomach, lying right up next to him on his left side. She propped herself up on her right elbow and crossed her left arm in front of her body. She laid her arm across his paws and rolled her weight onto her left shoulder so she was lying mostly on her side.

"Do you see this?" she asked running a finger across her wrist. She pointed out a scar. It ran from the dead center of the inside of her wrist around the outside and to the back, still across her wrist, just about as far across as her pinky finger went. It was about as thick as Sirius' eyebrow was when he was human but stark white in color.

 _Ouch, darling._ He barked one time and laid his chin in her palm and closed his eyes.

She giggled quietly and ran her thumb across his cheek a few times stroking over his soft fur she loved so much. He surely did not mind.

After a few moments she continued, "so how I got this scar..."

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her.

"I was living in Bologna, Italy when I was twelve and thirteen and—" she paused thinking. "How familiar are you with the muggle world? Er, what I mean is, do you live pretty much in the magical world? I know a lot of 'purebloods' do, but I don't know if you are one... are you?"

He barked once. _But I hate that whole arena of thought, Sunshine._

"Ah, I see. So... do you prescribe to the school of thought of blood purity and hierarchy and—"

He cut her off with two barks. An adamant no.

"Good," she chuckled, relieved. "'Cause I'm not one."

 _I know I shouldn't still be trying to rebel against the family that disowned me, especially well into my thirties, but that somehow just made you even more appealing._

"Where was I... oh, so I don't want you to get confused but I don't want to over explain if you're going to be sitting there thinking 'I know, I know, move on,' so, how much do you know about, like muggle current events? Or, I guess now it's history actually. So do you know much?"

 _Not a lick of it, love._ He offered two barks as an answer.

"So I should explain Italy in the early eighties?"

One bark this time. _Yes._

"Alright, so for years there had been a lot of political unrest. Different parties fighting for control, riots, assassinations, just total instability."

 _And that's where you're parents decided to live for a while?! Blimey, Sunshine..._

"I lived there for a few months throughout the summer and fall and in August there was an attack on a train station. It was an explosion actually. It was awful, Sparky; more than eighty people died, and something like two hundred more were injured. I wasn't in it. I was a few miles away at the time but I heard it. It was loud even that far away...

"Weeks later they had finished the investigation into the cause and the trial was underway so they cleared away the rubble to a junkyard. I went there one day with some neighborhood kids to just mess around and see what we could find for fun. We ended up, pretty stupidly, jumping from broken piece of this to mangled hunk of that, you know?

"Well we basically started playing 'follow the leader' but we were kind of racing. This one kid, Lucio, was really good at it, so I ended up right behind him. We lost the others and I guess they just wandered home, because it was just us two left.

"Then he jumped onto a piece of, what I think was once a train seat, and I guess it moved or got knocked funny, because when I jumped onto it, it completely fell over. Obviously I fell with it and tumbled down through broken metal and concrete and glass... This is where it gets a little dicey and gory so, brace yourself maybe."

 _...good to know, Sunshine._

"I tried to brace myself when I fell, you know, to stop myself. And I stopped myself for sure, but it wasn't good. My wrist here," she pointed to the scar again, "got caught. Part of the outer metal wall of the train had been ripped almost in two, so it was like in a 'V' shape, and somehow my wrist got wedged right in there. It happened so fast I don't even know how it got so stuck. I tried wiggling it loose but it wasn't moving."

 _Holy shite, love!_

"So we were thirteen and fourteen and didn't want to be caught somewhere we weren't supposed to be, so instead of sending him to get help... ready for the gory part?"

He hesitated, but barked quietly.

She looked him dead in the eye. "I did my best to not cry, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and ripped my arm up and out."

He was wide-eyed. Floored. Stunned.

"I really wonder what you're thinking right now... probably that I'm completely crazy, right?"

 _One of the many thoughts racing through my mind, love!_

"Well, he was a muggle and even if he wasn't I didn't have a wand on me, so there wasn't much of a choice, I was already bleeding. Granted after I pulled it out I started bleeding, way crazy more. Anyways, it hurt... like hell. I mean it was just... astounding how painful that was.

"It cut deep. It turned out that I had almost completely severed the tendon that leads into my pinky finger, and cut pretty far into the tendon in my ring finger too. So... pretty bad outcome," she chuckled. "And I never really let it heal properly so I never got full function back. Like my ring finger only has about 50% use or maybe a little more. And my pinky's worse; it's at about 10% use, I can still barely move it. See?"

She held it in front of him again and he watched her little finger struggle to twitch down. Her ring finger bent about halfway, but shakily.

"So my left hand can't make a fist or grip super well. Like I can open a door just fine, but squeezing a lemon or something, I have to use my other hand. Or I let someone else do it."

He tilted his head again, _how often are you squeezing lemons, Sunshine?_

"Don't give me that look... Oh, the lemons thing? Okay well, something else about me, I run a restaurant. And I cook there, but anytime someone orders the fish that has fresh lemon squeezed over it, I don't make it. So, yes, that example actually is very relevant to me, Sparky," she quipped, getting right up in his face.

He took the opportunity of her proximity to quickly kiss her on the cheek, which turned her playful glare and smirk into a genuinely happy smile.

They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, each separately wondering about the other. Bashfully she broke eye contact and tried to think of something to say.

She stumbled over her words a little, "so um, my little finger is really only good for pinky promises, and loose ones at that."

She looked back at him outstretching her hand in front of him. "Pinky promise me you'll write me a letter telling me about more about yourself? Stuff like I've told you today?" she requested.

He did his best to place his paw over her pinky, but covered nearly half her hand with his huge paws. She reciprocated by wrapping her thumb up on top of his paw for a moment.

And that, was the first time Sirius Black's heart truly skipped a beat when a girl held his hand.


	7. oo7

"Padfoot."

Nothing happened.

"Padfoot," Remus repeated quietly.

Again nothing happened.

A little louder, "Padfoot."

His elbow rose up, but quickly succumbed to gravity and resumed its place on the couch.

Remus sighed and rubbed his eyes, "Pad. Foot."

He shifted slightly to his left, still fast asleep.

"PADFOOT."

He opened one eye and slowly extended an arm and finger to point at his friend. He sleepily gathered his thoughts while he lay there for another moment, arm outstretched, finger pointing. "You're standing in my living room," he finally managed to spit out.

"You're sleeping in your living room," Remus responded batting his hand out of his face.

Sirius closed his eyes again and let his arm flop back down to the couch. "Quick of you, Moony. Very sharp still, I see. Those the smarts that brought you to top of the class?"

"Something like that," he answered he groggy friend.

"Why are you here?" Sirius yawned.

"I've brought you something," Remus stated.

Sirius kept his eyes closed but raised his eyebrows, "is it a sandwich?"

"No."

His face relaxed again, "pity."

Remus raised the item in his hand up to his eye level over Sirius' stomach, and let it fall. It landed with a soft _smack!_ on Sirius' middle as he flinched with an "uff!"

"Drop something on my empty stomach and it isn't even a sandwich," he muttered angrily as he lifted his hands to the item. He felt it to figure out what it was, still refusing to open his eyes. "Moony, I don't want a book," he declared after deciding that's what it was.

"Oh, I think you'll want this book," he said knowingly.

Sirius continued feeling the book, running his hand across the leather cover. He let his pinky trail down the smooth edge of the pages; his fingers felt for the inscription of a title but found nothing. He flipped it over, trying the other side of the book. Still nothing. Maybe on the spine? His thumb traveled there but found something else.

"What's this?" he asked when his hand came upon an additional piece of leather around the bind with a small space between it and the true spine of the book.

"It's a space for a pen," Remus informed him.

"Why… why do I need a pen… while I'm reading?" he yawned again.

"Because this isn't for reading—"

"It's a book."

"Just open your eyes, Padfoot."

"I'm sleeping. Can't you see? Yours are open aren't they?"

Remus surveyed the room for something to use against Sirius. He smiled finding just the thing. He leaned down to pick it up. "Fine. Go ahead; sleep. I'm just going to pass the time until you decide to wake up for real by reading this wonderfully interesting looking letter—"

Sirius' eyes shot open and he sat up at once, sending the book tumbling to the couch. He lunged forward, "GIVE ME THAT!"

Remus held it above his head, smiling with his eyebrows raised. "That reaction was even more amusing than I was expecting."

"Remus, give it to me," Sirius said, standing now. "Seriously, that's not for you to read."

"What does it say? Are you expressing your deep-seeded love for your girlfriend?"

"No. It's just not for you, and it's not finished. I fell asleep writing it that's why I'm not in my bed, and now my back hurts," he said while rubbing his spine.

"Welcome to the club," he said settling down into the recently abandoned couch.

"Still sore? It's been… what, a week or so? Since the last full moon?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine. It's just as you age, it seems like the recovery takes longer," Remus explained.

"Sorry, mate," Sirius sympathized.

"Not important right now. What is important is that letter. What exactly are you telling her? Your life story? Because you know you really can't do that…"

"I know. I'm not telling her my life story. I'm leaving out certain… identifying details. I'm just letting her get to know me as much as she's let me get to know her," Sirius explained, his scanning the letter.

"You're 'leaving out details?' So you're including most of it then? Blimey, that's a long letter…" Remus mused.

Sirius didn't answer, still reviewing his writing from the previous night.

"So what have you gotten to know about her?" prompted Remus. "What's she like?"

Sirius looked up at Remus and smiled, shrugging. "She's… sort of a badass."

"Not what I was expecting to hear."

"She told me a story about messing around in the rubble of an explosion when she was a kid. She got her hand caught in some debris and she didn't have a wand and couldn't yell for help, so she just… ripped it out. Permanently injured her hand. Badly," Sirius relayed from their last encounter.

Remus looked at him with shock and concern. "So she's completely mad."

Sirius smiled again, "yeah."

"Well, then there's hope for you yet."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.

"Mad enough to… nearly ruin her hand? Sounds mad enough to befriend the most wanted man on… well everyone's list. Maybe you should be the one watching out."

"She's not completely mental, Moony. She's just… well-versed."

"'Well-versed,'" Remus repeated skeptically. "How so?"

"She's lived everywhere. Really, I mean everywhere. Six continents, she said. And she was educated magically, but she knows plenty about muggles too. She was able to explain muggle Italy twenty years ago and told me about this three hundred year old muggle Irish tradition. Oh, and she's Irish. I mean, her accent was difficult because she's lived so many places, but she's from Ireland."

"Irish, huh? What else?"

"Um, I know she's single. And she's not a pureblood, but she didn't attend school; she was taught at home, so she can't be muggle born… she always wanted a dog growing up and never had one."

"Interesting, I mean considering, you know, you."

"Right? She was very close with her dad as a child. She said they're pretty alike. Her mom and sister seem opposite."

"Mhmm."

"She cooks. She has a restaurant actually."

"Oh, yeah?"

"And I think she would've gotten along with us in school… if she didn't get herself kicked out. She said she was always causing trouble. Which I believe," he chuckled.

"Your kind of woman then."

"Yeah. I get the feeling her life has rarely been boring…" Sirius trailed off thinking about her. "She's fun to listen to. I just wish I could talk back better. She really wants that."

Remembering why he had shown up to Sirius' house in the first place, Remus picked up the book again and tossed it at his absentminded friend's lap.

Sirius flinched as it hit him. He caught it as it slid off the other side of his legs, "would you quit abusing me with your stupid book?!"

"It's your stupid book," Remus informed him.

"I hate books," Sirius retorted.

"You'll like this one," Remus insisted. "Just look at it, would you?"

Sirius sighed and appeased his friend. He lifted the book back to his lap and looked it over for the first time. It was in fact leather as he had guessed from feeling it. It was a chestnut color with white stitching along the edge. The book's spine did in fact have an extra piece of leather on it with just enough space to allow a pen.

"There's no title," Sirius observed.

"That's because it's not for reading; it's for writing. It's a notebook, Padfoot," Remus explained.

Sirius blinked at Remus, waiting for the full explanation.

"I may have fixed your I-can't-talk-because-I'm-a-dog problem," he stated.

Sirius raised his eyebrows, still waiting for the full explanation. "Well go on and explain then. Quit torturing me."

"So the quills weren't taking the alterations well. So I got you this," he revealed as he withdrew something from his jacket pocket. It was a fountain pen. Maroon everywhere except the nib and clip, which were both golden in color. He handed it over to Sirius, who weighed it in his hand carefully.

He uncapped it and looked back at Remus, "so… this will work? I can use this when I'm with her?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't tried it. I'm not the Animagus. So let's go. Hound up."

"Don't say that. I hate that. You know that."

"I slave away all night long working on this for you and you won't even try it. You're not even grateful."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at him. "Be honest now. How long did this take you?"

"Once I bought the pen? Not long actually. The money for the pen is coming out of your vault, mind you. It wasn't exactly cheap."

"That's fine."

"It works with my wand just fine. I'm just not sure about the canine aspect. So, try it," Remus said laying out some fresh parchment in front of him.

Sirius nodded and transformed into a dog, sitting before the parchment. Remus laid the pen, uncapped, on the parchment and prompted him, "okay, just concentrate on lifting it. It may be more difficult; it is heavier after all."

Sirius breathed and looked at it. Very quickly he was able to roll it, this way and that. Then lift one end, and drop it back down.

"Concentrate," Remus encouraged.

 _I am concentrating._

"Treat it like a Patronus, maybe. Think of a happy memory. Not exactly the same principle but it'll help clear your mind. Help you focus."

Sirius sighed and tried again. He racked his brain for a memory. Twelve years in Azkaban does a lot to rid you of happiness, especially specific and vivid memories of it.

He took a breath and closed his eyes.

"That's it!" Remus exclaimed a moment later.

Sirius' eyes shot open to see the pen wavering an inch or so above the parchment. He focused harder, determined not to lose his streak of concentration. He carefully lifted and tilted the pen until the nib was pointed at the parchment.

"Okay, now—"

Sirius jerked his head towards Remus.

"Right. You know what you're doing."

Even getting angry and looking away, his focus hadn't broken. The pen was still quivering above the page.

He looked back and slowly lowered the nib to the page. He spent some time moving it around on the page aimlessly to get used to the motion.

It was moving just fine, but there was a problem. It wasn't writing. The point had been in contact with the parchment for some time now, but not a drop of ink was to be seen anywhere.

"I know you know what you're doing, but… here," Remus offered. "Fountain pens are different from quills. You have to hold it at an angle, like this," he said mimicking the angle with his hand, "in order for it to write."

Sirius twisted and tilted the pen. He tried again.

It worked. As he guided the pen across the parchment it left behind a trail of black ink in sweeping patterns.

"Nice one, Padfoot!"

 _Now to try some letters…_

He concentrated and began to spell.

Remus read out, "S-I-R-I-U-S. Very nice but you can't exactly write that one out for her."

He continued trying other words: yes, no, hello.

It was slow, but the words came out. Sirius put the pen down and transformed once again into a human.

"Why does it look like that? The blots, you know, the bleeding. It looks like I'm just learning to write."

"Well you sort of are in this respect. It should clear up though the more you practice and get used to it, and that's also what the notebook is for. The ink in fountain pens is different from that we use with quills. It works better on paper than it does on parchment, so when you see her you should write in the notebook. It'll be easier for her to read," explained Remus.

"This is incredible, Remus," Sirius said shaking his head in disbelief that the plan had actually worked. "Thank you, mate. This means… a lot. Really."

Remus nodded.

They left it at that. Even though they had been friends since age eleven, the last thirteen years had severely tested their friendship. Getting back to the closeness they had growing up was a process. The casual parts and pleasantries had come back about easily enough. The deeper parts, things like expressing feelings: concern, gratitude… those they were still figuring out. So when they came up they quickly let them fall away, letting a mutual silent understanding take its place instead.

"So when do you see her next?" Remus asked, getting back to easy conversation.

"Not until Saturday," Sirius answered.

"That long, huh? I thought you two had been seeing each other pretty much every day," Remus questioned.

"Yeah, well, she doesn't have quite as much… free time. As I do," Sirius explained.

"Ah, right," Remus mused with a slight smirk. "You mean she's not a convict on the run and in hiding?"

Sirius glared as the smirking werewolf. "Wrongly convicted. Innocent and wrongly convicted."

"I'm aware but the intent was there. Anyways, Saturday means you have plenty of time to perfect writing with the pen before you see her again."

"I suppose so," Sirius said thoughtfully picking it up and running his thumb down the side of it.

"Well good luck. I've got to be going," Remus said standing to leave.

"Thanks again, Moony."

"Of course, Padfoot."

"Oh, Arthur, would you get that?" Molly said over the faucet, referring to the knock at the front door.

"Of course, dear!" Arthur shouted from the other room. He rose off the couch and set the file on Self-Slamming Sliding Doors and Drawers that had been causing trouble in a muggle neighborhood in Berks on the ramshackle, second-hand coffee table. He quickly made his way to the door and flung it open to a right angle.

"Remus!" he announced, pleasantly surprised.

"Hello, Arthur," Remus replied, greeting the man warmly but tiredly as Molly joined them in the entryway to their home.

"Remus!" Molly echoed as he came into her line of sight.

"Hello, Molly," he greeted again. "I've just come to replace the gin and the wine from the other night," he explained with his voice low. "It's from Sirius."

"You can speak freely, Remus, and come in. The children are all getting into trouble way back in the yard."

"Oh." He said, relieved. He loved their children. Truly, he thought each of the Weasleys that he had had the pleasure of teaching were truly splendid, but having left the school they attended on account of his lycanthropy, he felt a little awkward about seeing them again.

"They're causing trouble?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "How do you know?"

"Because they're children. Fred and George are out there and that's their favorite activity it seems." Molly answered.

"Well, should we go stop whatever's going on?" Arthur asked, careening his neck to see out a small back window.

"No. No one's hurt and nothing's broken. They have a knack for finding trouble, but they're not stupid. And they have very guilty consciences when it matters. When things go wrong they own up." Molly answered nonchalantly. She was a good mother. She let them have their fun, let them explore the boundaries of whatever they'd like, until it was a serious problem. Then Disciplinarian Molly came out. And that? That, was a sight.

"I should really be getting home however, it's been a long day," Remus offered to get out of their hair.

"Just stay for a quick cup of tea. Quick, promise. It's already made."

Remus smiled. It was nice to have people want him to stay. It hadn't been that way for such a long time. "Quick one, then," he said with a yawn. He wasn't kidding about that long day.

"Wonderful," Molly announced, clapping her hands together and scurrying off to get the tea.

Arthur straightened his files and documents and Remus set the gifts from Sirius on the counter before the two men settled into seats in the living room. Arthur retook his post on the couch while Remus seated himself on an armchair that didn't quite match anything else in the house.

"So you've seen Sirius then?" Molly called from the kitchen, gathering mismatched teacups.

"Since dinner on Monday? Yes, twice, actually," Remus answered as Molly entered the room and joined her husband on the couch.

"And?" Molly questioned.

"Yeah, has he talked about meeting that woman?" Arthur pressed further.

"What's he said about her?" Molly couldn't hold back her interest.

Remus held his hands up in defense. "Slow down," he chuckled, sipping his tea. "Yes, he's talked about her."

Remus took another large gulp of his tea before launching into the full report. "They've met twice now being able to communicate somewhat. He doesn't know her name; she doesn't know his. I guess it's difficult because he can't speak, but I think we alleviated that. Charmed a fountain pen for him, so he can write."

"Fountain pen?" Molly questioned.

"Muggle writing utensil. Are you familiar, Arthur?" Remus responded.

"Oh, yes! Delightful contraptions. Ingenious, muggles are."

Molly nodded, appreciating her husband's interest, but not entirely interested herself. "What's she like?"

"From what he's said, and how he talks about her… she seems… well just his type, to be honest. Mysterious and a little difficult and quick-witted and… possibly dangerous.

"Dangerous?" Molly said, noticeably worried. "Could Sirius get in trouble by spending time with her? Could he be found out? Caught? Oh, he has to be careful for his sake and Harry's."

"No, no I doubt that. He's fine. I just mean she seems like a person who's a bit reckless. She's a troublemaker, like him," he explained, reminiscing on the story of her nearly severing her hand. "I think they're just both poised to try to figure the other out."

"Well," Arthur thought out loud, "some mental exercise might do him some good. Keep him busy. Keep him sane. Otherwise he's bound to go crazy in that house."

"Well that's for sure," Molly agreed.

Remus drained the last of his tea and spoke, "indeed. He seems extremely taken with her."

"As long as he's not too taken to do something stupid, like tell the woman who he is, then I'm happy for him," Molly gave her two cents.

They all agreed. The room was filled with happiness and excitement mixed with a very healthy worry for their difficult friend.

"Only time will tell," Arthur reflected.


	8. oo8

SNAP.

Alarmed, he looked around. _Did that come from behind me? From the woods? Sunshine usually Apparates right out in the open here. In the sunshine…_

The sound had certainly come from behind him. He was sure of it now. However, Sunshine was nowhere to be seen. There was no one to be seen actually.

 _Perhaps it was just a branch breaking. Stupid animals… except me. Besides that was a little quiet to be someone Apparating._

He settled his chin back onto his envelope, the notebook tucked snuggly beneath his chest, and waited. After being late for their first two meetings, he had been determined to show up for this one with plenty of time to spare. He was also very excited and a little nervous to be bringing along the leather-bound notebook and charmed fountain pen. It was pretty simple to keep your identity a secret when all you could really say is "yes" or "no" but now that he had the opportunity to write out whatever he wanted, who knows what might come up? He'd certainly have to be on his toes… paws.

A short time later, slightly prior to the time they'd agreed upon meeting there was a loud, CRACK. His head shot up again to behold the woman. She quickly deposited her knapsack on the ground next to him and flopped down with her head on top of the bag.

He turned his head to look at her with his tail wagging.

She sighed loudly. "Hey, Sparky," she said, eyes closed, void of emotion.

His tail stopped wagging. _You don't seem too happy. I didn't do anything, did I? I couldn't have; I haven't seen you in days._

He whined, urging her to speak.

She said nothing.

He nudged her with his paw.

She pulled her arm away, still not responding.

 _Alright, love, what's got your wand in a knot?_ He let out a short, annoyed bark.

After a moment she answered him, "I'm sorry, Sparky. It's just been a pretty troublesome couple of days since I last saw you.

"I'm not upset with you," she continued. "I've just had a million things happen regarding the restaurant, I think I mentioned it the other day? It's just been a non-stop train wreck, and it's put me in a pretty foul mood. So I thought I'd come here early and try to relax alone a bit before you showed up so I'd be fine when you got here, but you're already here."

He began pushing himself up to stand and leave, in order to give her some space. She opened her eyes and quickly laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't leave," she pleaded. "I know I said I wanted to be alone, but I want to see you. I just need a second to get the restaurant problems out of my head."

He lay down once again. Her hand lingered on his shoulder and she dragged her nails softly and aimlessly through his fur, back and forth, back and forth.

Then she paused and quickly tore her hand away, leaving it in hanging in mid-air.

"I'm sorry, does that bother you? I'm just used to petting dogs, but… you're not a dog. I mean, I don't want to treat you as a dog so—"

He cut her off with two barks, "no," to indicate it didn't bother him.

"You're sure?"

"Bark." _I'm quite sure, Sunshine._ He wiggled over a bit closer.

She smiled. "Alright, then," she said and laid her hand back onto his shoulder, inching her fingernails through his fur and against his skin lightly.

They stayed like that for a few moments together, but separate. The silence was comfortable. In their situation, in which communication was difficult, confusing, and often intermittent, silence was no stranger. They had quickly gotten used to a certain lack speech during their encounters.

This silence, aside from the bustling sounds of nature that the pond, woods, and all their inhabitants provided, was no different. It wasn't uncomfortable; they, or rather she, considering his inability to speak in his canine form, wasn't scrambling for meaningless words to fill the void between them.

They each had friends. There were people who cared deeply for each of them. Still, they were both people who had been, and still were, inclined to a certain amount of solitude, both by necessity and by choice.

There times at the pond held both elements of togetherness and solitude, conversation and silence, activity (usually mental activity of learning about the other) and relaxation. Currently, they were experiencing each of the latter: solitude, silence, and relaxation. Even though they had come to see each other and chat, they enjoyed just lying there together, experiencing all their clearing in the woods had to offer.

After a while, when running her fingers through his soft, midnight-black fur had melted her worries and troubles away, she spoke. "It's been a few days… how've you been, Sparky?"

He considered her question. _I've had better days… they were rather uneventful. Then again I've certainly had much worse days._

"Good?" she prompted.

After a moment he barked twice.

"No? Bad, then?"

 _Well, no._ He barked twice again.

"Just average?"

"Bark," he finally gave an affirmative answer.

"I suppose mine were about the same…"

 _Really, Sunshine. You showed up rather angry…_

"…I mean I had meetings and issues regarding the restaurant that aren't so fun to deal with, and they won't go away any time soon, but I suppose in the grand scheme it's not too awful," she chuckled. "I mean the week was just poisoned by drama and fuss. Not actual poison this time, thank Merlin."

 _Whoa, poison?_ His eyes widened in her direction.

"I know what you're thinking," she informed him factually. "Yes, you heard that right. I said I'm happy I wasn't poisoned this week."

He stared.

She stared back, trying to read his reaction. It's not easy on a dog. After a short, tense moment between the two new mates, the smile that had been trying to break to the surface of her face finally did, and a laugh along with it.

 _Yep, I was right the first time we met. She's crazy._

"I really wanted to see your reaction to that but it's sort of difficult to read canine features," she laughed. "And just to clarify, being poisoned is not an everyday occurrence for me. I just had an unfortunate incident with a bunch of sea urchins as a teenager."

His ears perked up at this. That interest wasn't too hard for her to read. "Nope," she answered.

He tilted his head. Confusion. _No?_

"You do not get any more 'Sunshine Childhood Stories' until I get to hear some of yours somehow," she informed her friend while she settled her fingers back into his fur on his shoulder.

He was lying on top of her letter for the day, and the notebook as well. He raised himself up on his front paws just enough to put his nose down and fish the letter out from under him. He gripped it gently between his teeth and looked up at her. That Devil's-Snare-wilting, Gringotts-deepest-vaults-illuminating smile made an appearance once again.

 _Keep smiling like that, Sunshine. Every time you do, all those years I spent in Azkaban get a little fuzzy._ He held the letter out to her.

She faked surprise. "Really? For me? Oh, Sparky, you shouldn't have," she joked, but she was already eagerly tearing the envelope open.

It was much thicker this time. She pulled out quite a few pieces of parchment folded up together, and one single piece folded much more tightly. She set the envelope on the ground and held the parchments, one in each hand.

She started to open the small one, as there were quite a few folds, but stopped when he gave her a warning growl.

Her fingers paused and she looked over at him, half a smile on her lips and eyebrows raised. "So I take it I'm meant to begin with this thick set, eh?"

 _Yes._ He barked.

"You do realize you've pretty much dared me to open the little one though. I mean you've given me both right off the bat, and you know very well how I am with dares…"

 _Ah, you're cute. But I don't exactly have pockets so, not really an option to give you them one at a time._ He shuffled over and lifted his head over her hand holding the smaller of the two notes. He lowered it until his chin made contact with her hand and nudged it towards the ground, eventually trapping her hand and the note.

She laughed. "Alright, alright, I see how serious you are about the order of these. Unfortunately, I'll be needing my hand back to read through this, but I'll let you keep the note hostage until I'm done with this one," she reasoned while slipping her hand out from under him.

He nestled his chin back into the grass and she turned and leaned her head onto his side.

"Do you mind?" she questioned, referring to her change of position. "I figured you'd be comfier than my backpack."

 _Not at all, love._ Two soft barks again.

"Which reminds me, before I start reading the novel you've written for me…"

He blushed a little at that, and thanked Merlin he had plenty of fur covering his cheeks so she couldn't see. Can dogs blush? He wasn't sure about most dogs, but dogs who were actually human and slightly embarrassed about how much of their childhood they had divulged in a letter to a girl? That's a bit of a different circumstance. _I hope this isn't boring to you, Sunshine, I just wanted to tell you a little about my childhood. I feel bad I can't talk back much…_

"…are you hungry? I mean, we are meeting during lunchtime," she offered.

He was. "Bark," he offered, after a pause.

"Perfect, 'cause I've brought you something as well," she said as she pulled her bag onto her lap and started rifling through it. Her hand exited the bag, holding something wrapped in foil.

"I hope you're alright with trying new foods… Don't worry it's nothing crazy just a little off the path of normalcy," she said setting it on the ground.

"Are you starving or can you wait a while? Cause if we leave it in the sun while I read this, it'll warm up and the cheese will melt… it'll be delicious," she explained.

He burrowed his nose back into the grass to show he was on board with waiting.

"Waiting it is then," she confirmed. She unfolded the parchments and smoothed them out. "Alright, time to read," she said with an excited smile.

And read, she did. Her eyes flew past page after page of his writings about a multitude of topics. She took in his comments on what she had shared with him earlier in the week, further details about his life (turns out Sparky had grown up with a little brother, who knew?), and a horde of "Sparky Childhood Stories."

Her eyes glided across the page again and again while an amused, content smile affixed itself to her face. She read silently but as she came across parts that made her laugh, she would read a line or a section out loud to him to let him in on what she thought.

The laughs, the gasps, and the reactions such as "no way!," "really?," "are you serious?," and "whoa, I wish I could've been there for that!," all the transparency of her thoughts she showed him while reading was greatly appreciated. She was definitely interested in reading his letter and learning more about him. Which is why he couldn't wait for her to get to the second parchment, still safely trapped between the ground and his chin.

As she got to the final lines of his letter, smile still widely apparent on her face, she ran her thumb over the signature and customary paw print he always left for her. Then she moved the final sheet to the end and carefully folded them back up together and sat up.

"That was fantastic," she said honestly. "Hearing all about you when you were young and your antics. I think you might've given me a run for my Galleons making trouble. If we had known each other as kids we probably would've spent all our time making trouble, trying to out do one another… it either would've been a blast of a childhood, or one of us would've died trying to do something outrageous," she laughed. "All or nothing."

She sat up, and as the physical weight of her head lifted from his shoulder, so did the weight of his worries. She had done the vast majority of the sharing until this point, and the more he learned, the more he wanted to learn about her. But being unable to contribute much, he had begun to worry that when he did, she wouldn't be interested. She was mysterious, fascinating… what if he didn't measure up?

If she was ever going to be able to see past his "Most Wanted" exterior, she needed to be pretty attached to him as a dog, and very much interested in him overall. He was very relieved to see that she naturally wanted to know more about him.

"So what's next, Sparky?" she asked, drawing him out of his head. "Lunch, or do I get to read that super secret mysterious message you're lying on?"

He motioned to the foil-covered container nearby.

"Lunch it is then." She pulled the foil away from the container to reveal a rather large sandwich.

 _See, Remus? She's phenomenal. She brings me sandwiches._ He made a note to share that detail with Remus on Monday.

She pulled a large pocket knife from her knapsack and quickly cut the sandwich into much more manageable pieces which a dog lacking opposable thumbs could easily consume.

"It may not be what you're used to; I'm not sure, so if you don't like it, don't eat it. I won't be offended," she laughed, assuring him, but he was already chowing down.

She giggled. "So it's alright then?" she inquired. He didn't answer. He just continued to eat. She took it as a yes and began to eat as well.

As they ate, the flavors of ciabatta bread, roast beef, pesto, red pepper, and mozzarella cheese swirled in their mouths, and the silence overtook them once again. After swallowing her last bite, it dawned on her again: the last page of the letter. "Alright, Sparky. Quit holding out on me. I want to see the last page of that letter you've been keeping from me."

He hesitated. He could feel the notebook under his stomach still. As much as he wanted her to read the note so he could write and they could communicate more cohesively, he was nervous.

"Don't you want me to read it? You did willingly write it…" she wondered out loud. Then she made him a concession. "I'll tell you what, how do you feel about strawberries?" she probed, pulling a canister from her knapsack.

He enthusiastically wagged his tail. _I haven't had strawberries since before Azkaban…_

"Then I get to read the letter first."

 _Damn._

"Oh, come on! It didn't look like a very long letter. It shouldn't take me more than a moment or two, you can wait that long, I'm sure."

 _I suppose…_ He had placed his paw over it when he began eating. Now he lifted it and nudged it towards her with his nose.

She picked it up, opened it, and read it aloud.

 _Sunshine_ ,

 _I mentioned last time I was working on a better way to communicate with you. I've made that happen. Well, a friend of mine did some of the work for us. Anyways, I say we try it out if you're up for it. Mind you, I'm still a bit shaky with the pen._

 _-Sparky_

She had begun the letter with an excited expression, but it had turned confused by the end. "The pen? What do you mean?"

He slowly stood to finally reveal the leather bound notebook, all the time watching her face for a change in expression. She looked at the notebook. She looked at him. She raised her eyebrows.

He looked at her. He looked at it. He jerked head towards it. _Pick it up, love. I can't much do it._

She slowly reached out and laid her hand on it. Receiving no protest from him, she grasped it and lifted it onto her lap. She slid the pen out of its holder and twirled it between her fingers. "So this is the pen, eh? Correct me if I'm wrong…" she trailed off for a moment, trying not to get her hopes up, "…but a pen and notebook. That usually means you're writing. You can't write as a dog, can you?"

As he lay down next to her once again, he responded with a bark. _Yes_.

"You can."

 _Yes_ , he confirmed.

"Seriously?" she asked in disbelief.

 _Yes_ , he insisted.

"Alright," she challenged, "let's see then." She opened the notebook to the first perfectly pristine page and held the cover down so it wouldn't close. She then uncapped the pen and laid it down.

"Go ahead," she prompted, not completely believing he could do it. After a moment she added with a smirk, "I dare you."

 _Oh, you and your dares, Sunshine. It's no wonder you're always in trouble._

The pressure was on but he concentrated intently on the fountain pen. He had improved quite a lot since his first tries with Remus, and he quickly got the pen's nib angled onto the page. Carefully, he began writing, concentrating on each individual letter.

As he wrote, her eyes and smile widened in tandem. He really could write. A whole new world of communication was open.

She silently read his writing: _Told you I could do this, Sunshine._

"You did, didn't you, Sparky."

He wasted no time as began writing again. _And I believe you promised me strawberries._

She laughed. "I'm not sure that was quite a promise, as much as it was a bribe, but yes, I think we should finish lunch," she responded. She opened the canister, withdrew her pocketknife once more, and began cutting off the stem of one. "Now, I don't mean to treat you like a dog, but seeing as you don't have thumbs, I may have to give these to you one at a time."

The pen glided across the page again. _That's fine. I believe kings used to be fed bite by bite…_

"Ha," she said humorlessly. "Maybe I'll just eat them. I'm not your house elf."

 _No, you're much more beautiful than my house elf. And I'm only having a laugh, love._

She let it go and gave him a strawberry. "Ah, you have a house elf. So you're rich, huh?"

This is what he had been nervous about. Now he would have to answer questions immediately. He didn't want to lie to her, but he wasn't in a position in which he could tell the entire truth either.

 _He was a gift of sorts._ He decided to avoid the question. Yes, he was rich, but he was by no means living the high life. And he had inherited Kreacher… that makes him sort of a gift, right?

"Oh, alright."

Before she could continue he changed the subject. _I've not been able to talk much since we've met, and since you have been able to, you've directed our conversations._

"Sure," she agreed.

He continued, _Since I can now, I think I should be able to choose our topic. I have a whole slew of questions for you_.

"'A whole slew' of them, huh? I've shared plenty with you. I've only gotten some information in return."

 _I've just given you the world's longest letter answering all your questions and sharing just as many stories._

She opened her mouth to protest, but all viable reasons failed her. She instead popped another strawberry into her agape mouth. They stared each other down while she chewed. After she swallowed she sighed. "Fine. What's question number one?"

He thought where to begin for a moment.

 _Let's start with… your family._

"Alright. What about my family?"

 _You have a sister._

"I have a sister," she confirmed with a nod.

 _Other siblings?_

"None to speak of."

 _Tell me about her._

She smirked and raised an eyebrow. "You interested in her?" she joked.

 _No, just interested in you, Sunshine._

She rolled her eyes after reading that, but he noticed she was grinning all the while. "Alright. Well, she's about three years older than me. She was super boring, and whiney, and a little too girly for me growing up. She never had any sense of adventure."

 _As you two grew up though, did you two grow closer or further?_

She hesitated, taking her time de-stemming another strawberry to give to him. The question asked more than he realized. "Soon after she turned sixteen, I was twelve, my parents split. My sister stayed with my mother. They moved back to Ireland, permanently. I stayed with my father and we continued moving frequently for his business dealings. So my sister and I rarely saw one another. I guess we sort of plateau-ed?"

He did his best to nod. _I see. I'm sorry about your parents splitting. I'm sure it was difficult to be without your mother?_

She shrugged. "I suppose at times… In all honesty I think it was good for all of us. My mother and my sister both missed Ireland, but I was too young when we left to really miss it, and my father traveled a lot of his life. He's not even from Ireland, so he didn't have any desire really to go back. So they left, and we kept on traveling across the world for a few more years."

She paused thinking back on her travels. Then she flipped the question back onto him. "What about you? You mentioned a brother in your letter…"

 _Two years my junior. We never got on._

"Oh. I'm sorry. Why's that?"

 _Just too many differences. No common ground really._

She just blinked at him, waiting for a longer explanation. He blinked at her too, refusing to give in and delve into his lonesome childhood, but after it was clear she wasn't about to speak until she knew more, he gave in.

 _I told you before, I'm from a pureblood family._

"Sure," she urged.

 _My parents held to that very tightly. My brother was the same way. They all saw pure blood as a person's best quality._

"And you don't," she guessed.

 _Exactly. I was never shy about voicing my opinion that pureblood lineage is about as important as hippogriff dung._

"So you don't get on with your parents either then…"

 _No, I didn't._

"Sounds lonely."

 _Yours doesn't sound much less lonely than mine. I had the world's best mates at school. You said "friends kind of came and went" for you, I believe._

She laughed, "I believe that's exactly what I said. And, sure, but my family was divided two and two, not everyone against me. And at least my father and I were tight while I was growing up."

 _Well I only dealt with it for so long. I left home at sixteen._

She nodded understandingly. "Ah, see I was sent home to Ireland when I was seventeen. Where did you go?"

 _My best mate's parents took me in. I stayed there when I wasn't away at school._

"Right. Those stories in your letter about school… it sounds like a pretty wild time."

His heart warmed thinking back to school. His glory days with James and Remus… and Peter… the laughs, the pranks, the meals, the classes, the train rides, the Hogsmeade trips… back when things were happy, nearly entirely.

 _It really was. I think you'd have liked it had you been there._

"So had I been at school with you, you think we would have been friends?"

 _Definitely._

She smiled, "I'd love to meet this 'James' in your stories."

His stomach dropped slightly. _I'd love for you to meet him too, Sunshine. Unfortunately, he passed away._

Much like his stomach just had, her shoulders dropped while reading his last message. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…" She trailed off as he began writing again.

 _Don't be. It was quite some time ago._

They were both quiet for a moment before he wrote again.

 _Alright, new topic. If you don't mind._

"Of course, you said you had a lot of questions. 'A whole slew of them.'"

 _Right. Well, number two of the slew: you mentioned something earlier about poisoning… and sea urchins? …and I'm just going to be wondering later if you don't clear this one up for me._

She smiled and nodded. "Alright." She de-stemmed the last two strawberries so they could each have one and began her story.

"I was sixteen years old and living in Bombay," she started, but quickly stopped as he was writing again. "Interrupting already, I see."

 _Sixteen-year-old Sunshine… I bet sixteen-year-old me would've been rather interested in you._

She let out a quick bark of laughter. "Is that so? How about current you and current me?" she flirted.

 _The circumstance of time doesn't much matter to me,_ he flirted back.

She smirked at that and her smirk stayed in place as she answered, "Well good, because I hate to ruin this for you, but when I was sixteen, you were…"

 _Twenty-four. Right. Never mind then._

"Back then a friendship between us would've certainly been odd. Now though…" she trailed off. They gazed at each other for a moment. What were they? Sure they were friends, but he refused to show his face. Furthermore, there always seemed to be an underlying flirtation between them. They each wondered where the other saw them…

"I assume you're familiar with Quidditch?" she broke the slight tension.

 _Extremely familiar. How does this relate to Sunshine's Sea Urchin Scene?_

She chuckled, "'Sea Urchin Scene?' I quite like that. The SUS. I'm using that from now on."

 _You're very welcome, but it's the SSUS._

"Well my actual name doesn't start with an 'S.'"

 _Aha!_

"'Aha!' what?" she laughed, puzzled.

 _I'm getting closer to figuring out your name. Now I know it doesn't start with an 'S.' Just twenty-five possibilities left._

"Well," she began sarcastically, "believe it or not Sparky, my name has more than one letter in it."

 _As does mine, but a first letter gives me place to start. So, does it start with an 'A?'_

She rolled her eyes smiling. "Not telling."

' _B?'_

"Not telling," she repeated.

 _Oh, come on. 'C?'_

She replied with a shrug, "not telling."

' _D?'_

"Sparky!" she exclaimed out of mild frustration.

 _So it is a 'D.'_

"It's not a 'D.'"

 _Only twenty-four letters left then._

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you want to hear about my sea urchin poisoning?"

 _In a moment. If I tell you what letter my name starts with, will you tell me yours?_

"No."

 _Really?_

"Yes, really."

 _Oh, come on. Please?_

"No."

 _Why not?_

"I will tell you the first letter of my name, if you show me your face," she challenged.

He sighed. _I can't do that._

"'Can't?' Or 'won't?' Because they aren't the same thing…"

 _Alright. Here's the reason._

She settled in, looking him in the eye intently, hanging on the silence, waiting for him to write again.

He looked at the concentration in her eyes for a moment before he wrote with a gleam in his eye: _Interested, are you?_

"Extremely," she admitted, "now go on."

He took a deep breath and wrote again. _The truth is, I won't be showing you my face because you might recognize me._

"Hang on," she interrupted his writing, "do we know each other?"

He laid the pen to the paper again, but she continued. "Because if we know each other," she said warningly, "and I'm telling you more about myself than I would to… whomever you really are, this is not cool."

 _Sunshine, we've never met anywhere but here._

She let go of the breath she'd been unknowingly holding. "Alright, then clear this up for me Sparky; I'm lost."

He ignored that request for a moment. _What wouldn't you tell someone you already knew? You haven't been revealing any deep dark secrets…_

She just looked at him, trying to simplify the intensive answer in her head. "I'm… just a private person. And you don't even know my name, so I figure I can leave and disappear forever if I ever want to…" She paused. "So I 'might recognize you' but we don't know each other."

He took a breath and admitted who he was, in a roundabout way. _I'm just someone who's well known in some circles… and you may have some preconceived notions about me. I'm really enjoying the anonymity for the time being._

She read his last message but gave no reaction at first. After a moment she nodded, thinking it over. "So you're famous."

 _I said well known._

"That's exactly what a famous person would say."

 _Maybe so, but I am not famous_.

"You're not famous, but you're convinced that if I just saw your face, or heard your name, I'd know who you are. And have 'preconceived notions' that you don't like."

 _Yes._

She resumed her slow, calculated nodding for a moment. "…famous author?"

 _No._

"Quidditch player?"

 _I wish._

"…I got it."

 _Is that so?_ he asked, daring her to let him in on her next guess.

She narrowed her eyes at him with a smile. She knew her next guess was ridiculous, but she said it anyways. "Minister of Magic. Pleasure to meet you, sir. Really, it's been lovely speaking with you," she said with a fake sweet smile.

He let out a bark of laughter, _I'm certainly not him, Sunshine_. He was quite the opposite.

She shrugged. "Yeah, I know… he's way over the age of thirty-four," she joked honestly. "Well I'm glad you're 'enjoying the anonymity,' but I'm not."

 _Oh, please, you're enjoying your own anonymity. You said yourself you're a private person; you can say whatever you want, and I'll never know who it's about if you don't tell me who you are._

"I suppose that's true. But I'm holding to my policy: I'll tell you my name when I know yours."

 _Fair._ _But… start me off with a letter anyways?_

She rolled her eyes with a laugh; he was determined. "You're too curious for your own good. What am I going to do about you, Sparky?"

By the time they left, the worries and anger she had shown up with were far, far from her mind.


	9. oo9

The ceiling was painted a shade of cream. It wasn't much to look at. Then again if you have enough thoughts to lose yourself in, you don't need much to look at. That's exactly what was happening. They were painstaking thoughts; deductive, logical, reasoning. Thoughts of friends… new friends. Thoughts of the past, a fountain pen that had opened a new world of communication, and a new willingness to share, all swirled just below the cream ceiling.

Guards had begun to be let down the afternoon the leather notebook and fountain pen appeared. At the time, they had just been chatting; it was how any two people average people would get to know each other: sharing, listening, asking.

The problem here lay in the lack of normalcy. This situation, these individuals… none of it was ordinary. They each had reason to hold back in divulging even basic personal information. Yet even with full knowledge that it was important for each of them to keep distance, keep secrets, keep details from strangers, they had shared things. Now, much later, how much had been willingly shared… it was worrisome.

The couch was stiff, not so much to deter a person from sitting on it, but enough that it was not conducive to comfort. Between the lack of comfort, and the racing thoughts, there was no chance of drifting off or losing focus.

 _Why didn't I keep some things to myself? We could've gotten through that conversation just fine without me spilling…_

Pieces of their last conversation floated back, packing the room to the brim with thoughts, memories, and reflections. All of these were intermingling, tangling, coiling, darting around between the couch and the cream ceiling.

 _I shouldn't have been so cavalier… I could've worked the conversation away from that… That was too much…_

Thoughts were swirling faster, more chaotically in her mind. She ran her fingers from her forehead, back through her hair, eventually coming to find the corners of the pillow underneath her head. She yanked it out from under herself and flipped it over to cover her face. The cool side of the pillow helped slow the thoughts racing around the room and in and out of her head. After a moment she shifted the pillow to lie on her stomach. She thought back to the words that little leather notebook had sparked…

 _One last question before you leave, Sunshine._

"Alright, Sparky, lay it on me."

 _Those blue flowers…_

She pointed in front of them to the right, "You mean those? The cornflower?"

 _Cornflower, that's what it's called, yes. What's the story, Sunshine?_

"What do you mean?"

 _Before we began speaking, you always seemed preoccupied with looking at them. Are they your favorite?_

"No. Not my favorite. Just…" she trailed off, thinking back. Then she mumbled, "…it's just all so different now."

 _Different from…_ he prompted.

She tried not to panic. She tried to answer honestly, but vaguely. "I came here as a kid. There used to be cornflower all over the place, but the pond is bigger now. I guess it overtook a lot of the flowers," she shrugged as if it was no big deal.

 _Really? You used to live around here?_

She took a deep breath, "yeah, not far actually."

 _Well, where?_

She said nothing at first. "Why all the questions, Sparky?" she laughed nervously.

 _If you didn't live far from here, you didn't live far from me. Come on, where'd you live?_

"A mile or so… that way," she answered slowly and jerked her thumb towards the right. East.

 _...I'm rather certain that's in the middle of the woods._

She nodded. "I told you I had an unconventional childhood, especially my living arrangements."

 _I think we should go see your old home._

"Oh, we can't do that."

 _Why not?_

She swallowed hard. They were too deep into this; there was no getting out. "It's, um… it's not there any longer."

 _Oh… how so?_

"It burned down."

 _This sounds like another crazy story…_

That's exactly what she had been afraid of. This was not a story she was comfortable sharing.

"I wasn't there when it happened," she told him. _That's not a total lie_ , she thought.

He wrote out a response. _Oh, well good._

"I don't remember the circumstances of it, but it was a cooking incident. I was only six when it happened." _Again,_ she thought, _not a total lie._

 _I see. Clearly, not your doing then. You're a wonderful chef. So when that happened I assume you moved to… Belfast? Moscow? Zurich?_

She closed her eyes and thought hard to answer the question honestly. She opened her eyes and looked at him, "Hamburg. I think Hamburg was next. It could have been Brussels though…"

 _You don't remember?_

"I was six! I didn't much care where we were, and even so I've lived a lot of places, Sparky, the order gets a little jumbled in my head."

 _I suppose that's fair._

She sighed. _There's no way he suspected anything about the fire, or about me… No, he's oblivious. Still, I need to be careful._

She pulled herself from the couch and stretched out her now stiff back. She needed a distraction. Still stretching she walked into her kitchen, flicking her wand towards her record player as she passed it and twirling it to turn the volume up. She opened he window above her kitchen sink and began pulling out a good portion of her pantry, cabinets and fridge. _Time to create something delicious…_

A short while later a very large bird landed on the windowsill behind her. It cawed over the loud, muggle music emanating from the record player.

She whipped around, her face calming when she recognized the bird. "Hey, Lacy," she greeted as she twirled her wand again to lessen the volume of the music. She took a letter from the bird, no doubt the reason Lacy had dropped by.

The envelope was blank, aside from one letter on the front. The first letter of her name in fact; the very one Sparky had been begging to be told. _No. Get out of my head, I'm supposed to be distracting myself from you, Sparky._

She stroked the bird under the chin and opened the envelope. Her eyes quickly scanned the brief letter, and she sighed at its message. Flipping the page over, she saw that the back was blank.

"I'll be right back, Lacy, I need to grab a pen," she said exiting the room. Lacy cawed in response.

She quickly scrawled a brief, "will do," on the page, hastily folded it up again and shoved it into the envelope. She changed the lonely "K" on the front into an "R," and held the envelope out to Lacy.

"Are you good to go back, or do you need to rest a while?" she questioned.

Lacy took the envelope in response.

"Alright then, girl," she said, "go on." Lacy turned and soared into the air.

She turned around, back to her mess of a kitchen, (cooking, especially creating something new, wasn't an orderly process), and threw herself back in distraction half-heartedly. How do you get such an alluring individual out of your head anyways?

Meanwhile, miles away, her companion was experiencing the same ordeal of analyzing his previous over sharing. His mind was no more systematic than her kitchen at the moment. He gazed up upon his grey ceiling from his dusty sofa, tossing an apple into the air and catching it repeatedly. He called to mind a piece of their last conversation…

"So in Bombay, there's not much space away from muggle eyes. The magical community there is wedged awkwardly and it's all stacked on top of itself. It's difficult to explain, but the spatial situation makes Quidditch impossible, but it didn't mean we didn't want to play.

"Long story short, the shipping yards were our solution. The muggle kids from the slums were there a lot, playing football, so we went one further… we altered Quidditch a bit, played it underwater."

His eyes widened and his ears perked up in astonishment at this. _How on earth…_

"Pulmonary Regression Potion. Weird, right? It's probably the most worthless potion even discovered, but we put it to good use. Are you familiar with it at all?"

 _Not even slightly, love._

She laughed, "I didn't think so. It temporarily regresses your lungs to the way they are before you're born. They're filled with fluid, but because your lungs are fully developed, under the potion they can tolerate normal water, even salt water. So we would take it, and play underwater."

A smile graced her face as she thought back on some of her own glory days. Gazing out at the pond, lost in reminiscing, she nearly forgot she was in the middle of a story.

He gave her a moment to collect her thoughts and continue on, but it didn't last long. He was curious about the end of the story, so he nuzzled his chin into her wrist. She smiled and lifted her hand to run it across his head and continued with her tale.

"Anyways, I was playing seeker that day. I don't even remember why… it was never my chosen position. The other teams seeker was a few years older… and you're interrupting me again."

The pen had begun racing across the notebook once again: _Hang on. Lots of questions. You can't use a broom underwater… and what about the snitch? That can't fly either._

"Right, I should explain. They altered broomsticks, so they had twigs but intermittently there was… siren hair."

He looked at her confused.

"Oh, um, I suppose you would call it merpeople hair."

He was shocked and a bit appalled. _You mean to say you lot killed and scalped merpeople to play Quidditch underwater? I mean, I don't exactly adore merpeople either, but that's just awful!_

"No, Sparky! I'm not that horrible. Sirens and merpeople are like two sides of the same coin, genetically similar, but culturally very different. Sirens are extremely violent and inclined towards battle at the smallest provocation. They attack, without valid reason, and anyone at all: other sirens, humans, magical creatures, non-magical animals… they don't discriminate in their aggression.

"Anyways near Bombay back then, there were a lot of territorial disputes between different clans of sirens. They began interfering with the ships in the shipping yards, which were run by muggles of course, and they were nearly discovered. So the wizards there put out a warning: stay hidden or get out, otherwise they were going to be slaughtered."

The slaughtering of another race, and her taking part… it was shocking. Who is this girl? _So you did kill them. Or you helped anyway…_

"What? No. This was years before I got there."

 _It's still not right to slaughter an entire people._

"I agree, but it was a huge problem. It needed to be fixed. And they didn't go out and hunt down all the sirens, just the ones too pigheaded to leave. The waters weren't safe, for wizards, for muggles, for anyone. They could rule the depths of the ocean, it was just the harbor they needed to vacate."

 _So they couldn't have just been asked to leave?_ He thought about Remus, his werewolf best mate. Most people were very hostile toward werewolves, but that was the very reason for his canine alter ego. The slaughtering of a people refusing to leave their home didn't sit right with him.

"This may be difficult to understand without being in Bombay, but the threat needed to be put out there. Most of them migrated to deeper waters, ones where muggles never went. There was one clan though, the people there called them the 'Gaurava' Clan, it means 'glory.' They were all about glory, they never fought for a reason except to win… they were ruthless.

"They were drawing muggles in and killing them. There were muggles going missing daily. The city knew something was going on, but of course they didn't know what… The Gauravas nearly let magic be known to all, and that couldn't happen. I know when there are minor crises, Memory Charms are used, but that was out of the question, millions of people live in the city.

"So in the end, for the good of the magical community, the threat needed to be… neutralized."

They looked at each other. He didn't like what she was saying. She didn't like it either.

"Look, I don't agree with how it happened, but I understand why. And the Gauravas were ruthless. They killed muggles for sport. They needed to be stopped. In the end, it was decided that Gaurava hair would be left near the entrance to the harbor to serve as a warning to any other clan planning to come in.

"A bunch of kids took some and altered their brooms… and that's the answer to your question."

He took a long moment to respond. In the end he decided to just move onto the snitch. _And the snitch? How'd you work that one out?_

"Oh, this is a much quicker and non-controversial answer," she laughed, "one of the guys transfigured the snitch: not wings, but flippers."

 _There's no way, that's crazy!_ He wrote, highly amused with her antics; the shock and alarm from a moment ago vanished quickly.

"I'm serious, I still have the one that caused the incident somewhere. I'll have to find it and show you."

 _Oh, I'd be highly interesting in seeing that._

"Would you also be interested in hearing about the poisoning?" she challenged. "You've asked to hear the story but you keep interrupting, Sparky."

 _Sorry, Sunshine. I'll listen from here on out._

She smiled. "Okay, so as I said I was playing seeker. The snitch came into view and the other seeker and I both saw it so we tore off after it. We got a ways away from the rest of the game; we were racing along a huge container ship trying to grab the snitch. I was in front and he went to hit me out of the way.

"I wasn't used to playing underwater. Hits don't have much force behind them because the water slows them, so in trying to brace myself I overcorrected and lost my balance. He sped off after the snitch, assuming I was right behind him, and he didn't look back.

"I had fallen, directly onto a bunch of sea urchins, flower urchins actually. They have the tiniest poisonous spines. They were all stuck in my back and shoulder blades. It's extremely painful, paralyzing, and it turns out, it neutralizes Pulmonary Regression Potion. I couldn't move, and I needed to breathe again. I started drowning, passed out.

"I guess he caught the snitch a ways up and once the game ended and they realized I was missing, they came looking for me, dragged me to the surface… I woke up two days later in a hospital."

He let the story sit with him for a few moments. She waited for a reaction.

 _You nearly died._

"I did," she confirmed with a nod.

 _I'm really glad you didn't._

"Me too, Sparky."

 _So Pulmonary Regression Potion…_

"Weirdest feeling in the world. Apparating doesn't even compare. Your lungs feel dry, because they need fluid in them. So you fill them by breathing in water, but it doesn't affect you. You don't drown from it; it's not painful; it's just odd. Oh, and it's really cold."

He thought back to swimming the North Sea after his escape from Azkaban. _I wish I'd had some last year._

"You swim? I mean, enough that you'd need to breathe underwater?"

 _No._ He wrote quickly, fearing he had said too much. She looked at him confusedly, wanting him to continue. _I mean, I did. It was sort of a one-time thing…_

His escape had been difficult and trying. He had stayed underwater as much as possible especially in the beginning, fearing the Dementors would catch him.

"'A one-time thing?'" she questioned.

He began to panic. Struggling to stay calm, he wrote. _Did a fair bit of swimming a while back. I didn't enjoy it, so I stopped._ It wasn't a lie; well, the first part wasn't.

She chuckled lightly, "but doing it all underwater, that would've improved it?"

 _I think so._

"Alright, Sparky, whatever you say."

He exhaled and balanced the apple on his forehead. _She couldn't have realized I was talking about swimming from a prison break… No, that's insane. She was just curious. Being able to write is great, but the problems it creates… I need to direct our conversations better…_

He took a slow, full breath, then let it out all at once. The apple shook from the change in topography and rolled own his face. "Ow," he exclaimed as he caught it against his neck.

It had hit his nose hard, so he sat up a rubbed it. _I need a distraction._

He bit into the apple, walked around the couch, into the hall, and up the stairs. He entered the second room on the left, and addressed the inhabitant, "Hello, Witherwings."

Witherwings snarled quietly at the name.

"I know, I know, you prefer 'Buckbeak' still, but there's a bounty on your head. Buckbeak is to be put to death; so, you have to be someone else now. You are Witherwings now."

He held out the apple, minus a bite of course, as a peace offering. Witherwings knocked it out of his hand with a flick of his beak. It rolled under a dresser covered in enough dust to kill a dozen asthmatics.

Sirius sighed and walked toward the dresser, "I have no dead animals for you. This is all you're going to get for now. Molly will be by later with groceries, but until she can get around to it…" He lifter the dresser from one end, "fish it out, will you?"

Witherwings snarled again.

"Oh, sod off, we're living in filth as it is. I don't want that rotting in here too," he reasoned.

Witherwings complied and pushed it out. It rolled into the middle of the room, covered in dust. Sirius set the dresser down gently, so as to not create a cloud of dust and picked up the apple. He opened the window, tossed it out, and brushed the dust off his hands.

Then he dragged the graying armchair in the room towards the beast, settled in with a hand on his back to stroke his feathers, and resumed his staring at the ceiling. He presented a new peace offering, "Do you want to hear about Sunshine?"

Witherwings turned his head to look at him better.

"I'll take that as a yes. Alright…" and he launched into his thoughts again. So much for a distraction.

She lay against her knapsack as always, in the sunshine, enjoying a sunny Sunday at the pond, eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly. "Hey there, Sparky," she called when she heard a soft padding on the fallen leaves and grass.

He continued trotting up and dropped the notebook onto her stomach. "Oh!" she exclaimed when it hit her. She lifted the book with one hand and rubbed her stomach with the other. "Ouch, Sparky!" she glared at him.

He whined looking at the notebook, thinking, _come on, love, open it. Time is Galleons._

"Yeah, alright, don't get your wand in a knot," she seemed to read his mind. "…tail," she smirked at the notebook, thumbing through to find where they had left off. She looked up at the dog, smirk growing ever wider, "don't get your tail in a knot. You know cause, you're a dog."

She opened the book to the next blank page and uncapped the pen. He immediately began to write. _Very funny, Sunshine. How did you know when I had gotten here?_

Her smirk grew into a confident smile, "I thought it was funny, and I was listening. Yeah, I'm that good."

 _You certainly seem to be that good, Sunshine._

She chuckled. "For weeks I barely saw you, I only ever heard you. I got used to the sounds you make, Sparky," she informed him, angling the notebook against her hip.

He flopped down, resting his chin on her stomach. Her free hand naturally came to lie on his head. _I do not make sounds,_ he insisted.

"Of course you do."

 _Do not._

"Oh, don't be a child. I know what your tail sounds like when you wag it through all the fallen leaves, and I can pick out the sound of you panting in the heat. Same goes for you coming and going. Once I thought I heard you yelp and run away…"

 _I was stung by a bee a couple weeks back._

"Ah, makes sense now. See? I know the sounds you make. And now I'm used to you whining and growling and barking too," she elaborated. "Though, for full disclosure, I did greet you once before you got here. Thought I might've heard you… still, right on the second go around isn't bad."

 _Ah, so you don't know me as well as you think._

"Oh, no. I do. I think I was just being hopeful that you were here. I like when you're here."

He felt his heart tug slightly, _I like when you're here too._ She smiled as he began to continue, _alright, so continuing from last time_ —

She cut him off. "Wait, I have a couple things first. Three actually. Shall I start with the one that won't make you so happy?"

 _No, I think you should just forget that one and move on to the second_ , he joked.

"I wish, Sparky, but it's a bit of a pressing matter. Time sensitive."

 _Oh, well, then go on. What is it?_

"Uh, something's come up, and it's not a big deal," she started, thinking back to the letter she had received the day before, "but it turns out I have to take care of something today, so I can't stay very long."

 _Oh, I understand,_ he wrote sadly. _You're sure everything is alright, love?_

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she brushed it off. "Okay, second thing," she said pulling her bag from under her head to her side, "I spent half the day yesterday tracking this down."

She pulled a small, golden ball out and laid her hand flat. "This is a Flipper Snitch," she informed him. It rolled to one side and out popped a fin-like appendage, then rolled back the other way and popped out another. It balanced itself and a small dorsal fin rose up from the top.

 _It's extremely odd-looking…_ he wrote as it struggled to move itself around her hand.

"It can't support it's own weight in air, so it doesn't look very impressive, but underwater it becomes a whole new snitch, trust me."

He reached up a paw to swat at it. It began squirming again. As it did, the pen moved again, _Not at all what I'm used to._

She laughed and questioned, "You play?"

 _As a kid I couldn't get enough._

She twirled the snitch in her hand, "what position?"

 _I played a lot of pick-up games as a kid, just me, James, maybe a couple others. He was captain of our school team, Chaser, so I would have a go at Keeper to help him practice. We'd mess around with the snitch too and the beaters bats too though. I wasn't bad._

"Keeper, eh?"

 _What's that supposed to mean?_ he inquired.

"Nothing. Just, you know, different positions tend to have different personalities."

 _Oh, really. So what's a Keeper's personality?_

"Nothing, nothing. I don't know, strong, protective, defensive…"

 _Not far off._

"Hey speaking of your friends, that's actually my third thing. You said a friend helped you with the notebook and pen?"

 _Well, yeah._

"So your friend… friends?... know about me."

 _You've not told anyone about me?_

"How would I do that?" she laughed. "'Hi! What's new with you? Oh, me? I've befriended a dog who's actually person but he's keeping his identity a secret for some reason, and we meet up a few times a week now.'"

 _I suppose that might be odd…_

"No kidding. What've you told this friend about me?" she asked curiously.

 _Just that I met you._

"And just like that he jumped into 'oh, let me help you communicate better!'"

 _Well I may have elaborated on you a bit. Nothing specific, just… things._ Then he thought about it, _...well not all the specifics._

"You told him how wonderful I am though, right?" she joked.

 _Of course._

She laughed, surprised. "I was kidding."

 _I'm not._

She laughed again, impressed. "And you said you're not married? I can't believe a man as flirty and flattering as yourself hasn't scooped up someone by now."

 _I've been preoccupied._ He decided against including 'hiding from the authorities.'

"Oh, please that's a cop-out excuse. Everyone's busy."

 _I've been busier than most_ , he assured her. He continued on writing, _so no one in your life knows about me?_

"I'm a pretty private person."

 _I've noticed, Sunshine._

They fell into silence after that for a few minutes, each wondering about the other. They hadn't touched much on their current lives, especially away from the pond. He wondered whom she spent her time with, cooking, getting into trouble? She wondered likewise about him. She couldn't picture him as a man, walking, talking, having a beer with a friend perhaps?

Deep in thought still, she realized the snitch in her hand. "Sparky, I'll have to be leaving soon."

He whined in response. _Stay here. Forget whatever it is you've got to do._

"I know. I wish I could. You're much more fun… I have a few minutes. Do you want to see how this snitch is in the pond?"

His ears perked up. He lifted his head from its position on her stomach, got up and bounded the few lengths to the edge of the pond.

She laughed while pulling herself to a seated position and threw the snitch over him. As it landed with a splash she joined him just time to see the clear amusement on his face.


	10. o1o

First things first, a couple of huge thank you's to Prisoner of Azkaban711 and the guest (you know who you are, even if I don't!) for the very generous and encouraging reviews! Absolutely made my day. People like you make writing way more fun :) now, onto the story.

 _He's… mystifying,_ she thought. _Is that a strange thing to think about a man you've never met in the flesh? Well, human flesh anyway._

She was walking, delicately and discreetly. Almost silent, she took each step with great diligence, being careful not to lose her footing along the jagged coastline. The ocean waves crashed and misted her with sea spray, threatening to knock her over with each stride. Her mind was torn between analyzing her newfound companion, and focusing on getting to her destination without hurting herself. She managed to work her way down the shore, carefully dodging waves, maneuvering through thick, thorny weeds, and sidestepping a few rocks that were unforgiving when falling on. She'd found that out on past hikes through here.

Soon her self-made pathway cut uphill, away from the water and into more lush greenery of the countryside. Off in the distance she could see a small cottage. It appeared perfectly white at first, but as she edged closer and closer it was evident how unkempt it was. The cottage had endured years of being battered by the harsh gusts of sea air, day in and day out. The paint was peeling, the wood bleached by the glint of the sun off the water. Far off the color had seemed uniform but up close he neglect was etched into the splotches of paint that had managed to withstand the sea's torments. Upon further inspection it could be seen that there were a fair few shingles missing from the roof and almost as many chunks of concrete had long since crumbled away from the stairs.

The house seemed barren and empty aside from one clear sign of life: an actual human life. Crouched beside the corner nearest her was a man, gardening. With silvering hair that was more salt than pepper colored, and skin as sun-beaten and wind-pummeled as the cottage, the man had the appearance of a young, lovable grandfather upon first glance. However after a second or third glance, a more complete picture formed. The man was gardening, or trying.

He was digging a small hole in the sun-baked dirt with a hand trowel. There were various gardening essentials scattered within arm's reach of the man, thick gloves, gardening shears, a rubber pad on which to kneel, even a watering can, but one gardening requirement was missing: plants. There was no greenery, no vegetables, no flowers, no seedlings of any sort… nothing.

As the cottage and its lone dweller appeared on the horizon, the woman's jaw set itself into a stoic façade and she deliberately diminished her strides until they eventually halted. She exhaled with the slightest vibration of sound and watched the man. He would dig a hole, wipe his brow, shuffle a few body widths towards the centrally located front door, and dig another. After the second hole however, he split the newly dug mound of earth in two and pushed the dirt back into the twin pits. Then he began again.

She rolled her eyes and produced a muffled huff. Then she regained her earlier pace and opened her mouth. "You suck at looking like a muggle, Stan," she stated in a bored tone.

The man stopped patting the loose dirt down; in fact, he stopped moving altogether. Until now he hadn't been aware of the presence behind him. Still, he didn't turn to see who it was. He would know her anywhere.

He calmly relinquished his grip on the trowel to gravity, and it landed with a soft thud upon the garden's surface. He rose up slowly to his full height and turned to face her. "That is not my name," he drawled, emphasizing each word.

"Of course it is," she insisted.

"My name is 'Stanislav,'" he stated with the same calculated cadence as before.

Her feet had carried her to his position and they were face to face now. He looked at her bored face, and she, at his collectedly expectant one. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke. "That's a stupid name."

He said nothing.

She waited.

Once it was clear he didn't care how much time they wasted in silence, she pressed, "well?"

"'Well,' what?"

She was fed up. It happened to her easily here. This place shortened her fuse immensely. She brushed past him and strode towards the door.

His face morphed from polished indifference to annoyance and energetic unrest. "You can't—"

But he cut himself off, knowing from experience that she would never hold the intention of listening to him. He bent to retrieve his wand, which had been concealed in the grass. He hastily brought it to the corner of his mouth and began to mutter quietly as a silver-white luminescence poured from the wooden tip. She was oblivious to the magical swirl that was growing behind her. It quickly formed into its final structure and sped away from its creator, past the woman and through the door.

"A Patronus?" she asked over her shoulder without the lack of certainty that a question typically begged. "Out in the open? Very muggle-like, Stanny-boy."

As she approached the last of the crumbling concrete stairs, he made one last futile effort to stop her. "You have to surrender your wand!"

"Like hell, I do," she stated as she turned the knob.

Her frame pushed through the door's much larger one and as it shut behind her she was enveloped in near-darkness. It didn't matter. She worked her way towards a faint light coming from deep in the house. The source of the glow was a window, situated in a small room.

In addition to the partially illuminated window, the room housed a scratchy but cushy couch, a nicely sized desk, even if it was void of one of its drawers and in desperate need of refinishing, an assortment of mismatched bookshelves, upon which sat an even more diverse array of books, clearly well worn by multiple reads or possibly second-hand (most were both), a potted plant that had clearly seen better days, as it was on the brink of giving up, and a shadowy figure staring blankly through a small slit in the blinds out onto the grass that graced the cottage's front yard.

He would have been hardly noticeable, what with being completely stationary and silent, but the thick cloud of cigar smoke that engulfed him and dusked the room despite the sunlight, gave him away. No doubt the mystery man had witnessed the events of a few moments ago.

She picked up a book that was violating the deathbed of the plant and wiggled another free from its prison between the planter and the wall. As she collapsed onto the sofa, a third book fell from its former position atop the sofa's back and into her lap. She glanced at all the covers. The largest but thinnest book was titled, _From Macrame to Crochet: A Crafter's Guide._ She also held a beige novel titled, _Conquest and Coercion,_ and another fraying book titled, _Mexican Politics, 1861 to the Present, Vol. 1._ She dropped the first two to the floor with a thud and settled in with the political book.

The silence in the dingy room had yet to be broken by a voice. The man peered out the window; the woman thumbed through the book; both were silent.

Then, from deep within the house, footsteps. A dark-haired man burst through the doorway. The occupiers of the room were none too surprised by the occasion. He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman beat him to it.

"Hello, Damir."

"You cannot just walk in here without going through the security check," he informed her, trying not to let his exasperation show.

She still hadn't looked up from her book. "Damir, no one in their right mind would want to come here, and no one who is not in their right mind would be able to impersonate me. It's me. Security check, done," she explained as she turned a page.

He knew she was right. "We still need to do it."

She huffed, annoyed. "Just so you'll leave, ask away."

"How did you break your nose?" he asked stepping closer and crossing his arms.

Her eyes were still on the book. "Miscalculated my trajectory during a head butt. Turns out skulls are rather unforgiving."

"And what were the circumstances of the incident?"

"Let's see," she started, aimlessly flipping a few pages, "It was 1982… and the rest is none of your business."

"Fine," he sighed; he knew he wasn't going to get any further. "Then just give me your wand."

"Hmm," she considered his request, "no."

"You—"

"It is tucked safely away, and I don't foresee myself taking it out to waste magic on you lot."

He shook his head and quietly slipped out of the room.

She and the man in the corner fell back into silence. Neither one had yet paid any attention to or acknowledged the other.

He puffed on his cigar. She turned a page. He blew some smoke out slowly. She ran her finger down the inside of the bind quickly. As he polluted the air, her mind was becoming equally as polluted with impatience. Still, she refused to break the silence.

His cigar dwindled, and as it became nothing more than a stub, he spoke. "You came."

"Said I would, didn't I?" she replied, boredom blanketing the statement.

Clearly her answer had not been what he had been looking for, as he did not speak again. Instead he stamped out the remnants of his cigar, and set it upon the paint-chipped windowsill. He withdrew a new cigar from a box upon the bookcase next to him and lit it, a trail of smoke still emanating from the first.

Seeing as his mouth was now occupied again by a cigar, and her impatience had not been mitigated by a mere two words from the man, she decided to probe his intentions.

"So," she started, letting her book drop to the floor with a thud, as her attention had not been so held by it. After all, she had merely been using it as something to direct her mind towards instead of the obscured denizen in the corner of such a wretched place. In other company and in another setting it may have set her burning curiosity about the world around her alight, say, on the banks of a particular pond… perhaps in the company of a particular Animagus.

"Why did you summon me?" She had a knack to getting to the point when she was especially annoyed.

He removed his cigar from his bone-dry, ashen lips and moistened them with an even more pallid tongue. Then he spoke, "I would hardly call it 'summoning.' You came of your own free will." His eyes still hadn't deviated from his careful inspection of the pitiful garden before him.

She lifted a pile of books from the foot of the couch onto her lap and surveyed them. She held a decaying dictionary of Ancient Runes, a set of essays pertaining to advanced calculus bound between two blue covers, another blue and silver one called _Unicorns: Ultimately Unique and Useful,_ a copy of Marx and Engels' _Communist Manifesto_ in the original German, and large maroon publication containing a series of muggle fairy tales and the guiding commentary of wizard, Urbanus Odense. She cracked open the fairy tale guide, already amused by the prospect of seeing muggle stories in a wizarding light, and answered the man with a short, "per your request."

"You could have declined," he answered immediately, cigar bobbing in his mouth as he did.

She said nothing, silently refusing to answer a line of conversation that was destined to achieve nothing. Instead she gazed upon an illustration of a boy, chin tilted upwards, eyes attempting to grace the top of a massive, leafy plant. No doubt, she was looking at a depiction of Jack and the Beanstalk.

As he grew increasingly keen to get to conversation more pertinent and interesting, he interrupted her reading. "Did you bring what I asked for?" His tone was careful to hide his eagerness.

Instead of providing him a report, she countered with a totally different statement of, "I bet you're getting loads of use out of this book." She held up the earlier discounted, From Macrame to Crochet: A Crafter's Guide.

He finally tore his eyes away to see what she was speaking of. He glanced at the title, but ignored her statement. Again, he asked, "did you bring what I asked for?"

"I did," she answered, dropping the book to the floor again and busying her hand instead with searching through her bag. "But I hardly think it'll be of any use. The majority of it is nearly a decade old."

He waited for her to find it. She withdrew her hand from her bag after a few moments, now holding a large stack of untidy and askew parchments. She stood up where she was and tossed them ever so slightly onto the dusty desk. They landed with a smack! and slid to create a smear of information across length of the otherwise empty workspace.

He watched this, but as the papers' momentum stalled, he turned his attention back to the yard. "I'm sure it's satisfactory," he assumed.

"What's happened to make it so pressing?" she asked, seemingly half-interested.

"Nothing."

She looked up from her book to make sure she had heard him correctly. "Nothing," she repeated.

"Nothing," he confirmed, making the answer unanimously trifold.

Atop a pictorial comparison of house elves to the complementary muggle version of elves, she clasped her hands together tightly as though she was trying to physically hold in her impatience with the man. "You couldn't wait two days for it? I'd have come later this week."

"Why would I want to do that?"

Seeing as he was not looking at her, she rolled her eyes. "It's never 'nothing' with you," she implored him.

"As of right now it is."

"You don't tend to waste your time on 'nothing,'" she noted aloud. Her eyes turned back to the book as she turned a page.

"It's just become of mild interest once again. It is nothing concrete."

She shut the book. If he wasn't going to tell her anything of substance, she was no longer interested in continuing to have him as company.

She was hastily shoving the book into her bag when he spoke again, "you seem angry."

"I am angry," in an even tone she confirmed his observance while trying to convince the last stubborn corner to take refuge in her knapsack.

"Oh?" he turned to view her again, cigar in hand now.

"I have things of actual purpose that I need and would like to do," she insulted him coolly.

"Such as?"

"Such as not be here," she informed him.

"That's my book," he said of the book she had indeed just kidnapped.

"Not anymore, it's not," she answered as she fastened her bag shut.

"How do you figure?" he questioned.

"You waste my time and don't tell me the reason, I take your book. It seems more than fair."

She stood up and turned towards the doorway. As she began walking, a question was addressed to her back. "How is Jason?"

She stopped in the doorway, one hand on the frame. "I wouldn't know," she replied. And with that she pushed herself off from the wall and made her way through to the front door and out into the sunlight.

He watched her walk away through the yard. Stanislav and the woman did not exchange words, or even glances, although she did notice that he had begun to work his way down the length of the house with his digging, and had even conjured some ghastly looking chrysanthemums with which to fill the holes. Still she did not stop to acknowledge the laboring man or the action, and the smoky man inside the house watched her walk until her path tilted downhill and she was out of sight.

Remus drummed his fingers on his knee. Molly shifted in her seat, wringing her hands. The tension within the walls of The Burrow was immense. Sirius on the other hand was completely at peace. He was lying sprawled on the lumpy sofa, one leg resting lazily out across the cushions, the other bent to hang over the back of it. In contrast to his legs, his hands were folded neatly on his chest.

"Why don't you just—," Molly started.

Sirius cut her off, "not yet, Angel."

Remus and Molly had been watching Sirius intently, waiting for him to speak of his new friend. Molly had yet to hear anything straight from Sirius, and in the weeklong absence of them in each other's lives, a lot had happened to Sirius. So, of course, he wasn't saying a word. Instead he was sprawled out on the couch, thinking about his week and torturing his friends with his silence.

The silence persisted, occasionally heckled by the drumming of Remus' fingers and the impatient sighs of Molly. Sirius didn't mind. What fractured the silence in the end was a loud _ding!_ and the whirring of clock hands. They all turned their attention to the extremely odd clock on the wall. Each of the Weasley's had a picture on a hand, and Arthur's had just switched over from 'work' to 'traveling.'

The tension dissipated, and soon after, Arthur arrived in the fireplace of the Burrow via the Floo Network.

"Alright, mate. Time's up," Remus informed his friend.

As Molly got up to greet her husband, she concurred, "everyone's here. Go on, now."

Sirius looked over at Arthur and responded to the group, "right, then. What would you like to know?"

"Well let's start with, what's her name?" Molly suggested.

"Still don't know," Sirius answered.

"Well how many times have you met with her?" Arthur started him off with an easy question.

"Since last we all spoke? Four."

"And you haven't managed to ask for her name?" Molly asked.

"I've asked her plenty. She won't say. Which is fair, I won't tell her mine," Sirius said, rather calmly, considering how many times he'd inquired on that same topic.

"You've met with her four times; you've had to have found out something," Arthur reasoned.

"Well, sure," Sirius shrouded his true thoughts.

"Oh, tell us something, Sirius," Molly said impatiently.

Sirius let out a breath, and thought where to start. "Alright, well… she's twenty-six. She's a chef. She's…" he trailed off.

He wasn't sure what to say. He'd spent hours now chatting with her, learning her stories, mannerisms, facial expressions, and a small smattering of details about her. They seemed to be getting to know each other; they seemed to be comfortable sharing the more trivial portions of their existences. Still, they'd trusted each other with important elements as well, even if on accident.

"That's all you know?" Molly drew him out of his head.

"Tell them about her hand," Remus suggested as a starting point.

Sirius nodded, thankful for a way to direct his swirling thoughts.

He lifted his left hand from his chest, fingers lazily pointed towards the ceiling and flexed his last two fingers to his palm and back a few times, "she can't do this. She hurt her hand as a kid, ruined her ability in these two fingers. There's a rather harsh scar here," he explained as he drew an imaginary scar around his wrist with his other thumb to match that of his newfound acquaintance.

"How'd that happen?" Arthur inquired, expressing the interest of all the room's inhabitants. Even Remus was keen to hear, as he had been given a brushed-over version days earlier.

He smiled remembering her childhood stubbornness and bravery. "She was messing around in a junkyard with friends as a girl, age thirteen I think she said. The junkyard was full of smashed train parts and building parts from an explosion a few weeks before. She and her friends were jumping onto different broken pieces, and she jumped on one funny. She fell, got her arm wedged in an old piece of an outside train wall. It was cracked or something, I guess, and she couldn't get her wrist out; it was absolutely stuck and bleeding now. She didn't have any other choice so she tore it out, cut her hand open even further, and severed two tendons. It never healed."

The room was thick with thick with curiosity and concentration; focus and fixation enveloped his every word. Of course, Sirius didn't realize this. He was again off in his head. Sure, he was physically there, verbalizing his thoughts for his friends, but mentally he was back at the pond, basking in the sun and listening to the story for the first time.

After a short silence, Remus once again prodded his childhood friend back to reality. "She's quite 'well-versed.' Isn't that how you described her?"

"How so?" Molly piped before Sirius could agree.

"She just… she knows a little bit of everything, magical, muggle. And she's lived… countless places. Her family traveled almost all her whole life. Not vacations, they moved every few weeks or months or so, I guess," he squinted slightly, reminiscing. "She's full of surprises."

"Surprises?" Molly pried.

"Crazy stories and experiences. She's the furthest thing from boring. Every time she opens her mouth I'm amazed by what she knows, where she's been, what she's done…" he chuckled thinking back on her once-in-a-lifetime experiences: the junkyard, the sea urchins, even the fire she'd mentioned the lat time they'd spoken. "She hasn't always set out to accomplish the safest of feats; she seems to always be getting into trouble."

"So she's just like you."

"Hardly," Sirius countered. "I'm in hiding, confined to a house I despise, and possibly the most sought after target by all forms of law enforcement. She's totally free. She can do anything she wants; and she does."

"Well," Arthur opposed, "it may be the case that she can do anything, but what she does is visit you."

Sirius pondered that answer. It was true. She seemed to be the type of person who was always having thrilling, new experiences and trying unfamiliar things. Still, she was still content to sit idly, on the edge of a small pond in the middle of nowhere, and attempt to solve the riddle of the mysterious black dog with the leather notebook and the fountain pen.


	11. o11

"When did you take up smoking?"

She lifted her eyes from the tattered entryway rug to meet the other set of eyes in the room, and in doing so her hood fell to her shoulders. "I'm rather certain your father taught you to greet people more politely than that. Especially customers," she said with a smile as she shrugged off her jacket.

As the rain pummeled the windows and door, Anton corrected himself, "good morning."

"That's what I thought you meant. And good morning to you too, Anton."

"You smell like smoke," he pressed her again, "and rather early in the morning I might add."

"And just like that," she snapped her fingers, "all the courtesy is gone." He waited patiently while she deposited her coat and knapsack onto a stool next to his own.

"I don't smell like smoke. My bag smells like smoke… still," she explained. Then in a mumble she added, "Merlin knows what's in those cigars…"

Anton seemed sated with her answer, as he changed the topic. "Well my dad's not here yet, so if you just leave your list with me, he'll prep it and I can bring in by the restaurant later."

"Actually, I'm not here for a business order."

"Oh," Anton started. "Well… I can't really help you out. Dad'll be back this afternoon."

Her shoulders slumped. "I need it this morning."

"Well I guess you're out of luck," he teased. "So sad."

"You're just mad cause I'm cooking for someone else besides you," she reasoned.

"You're not wrong. Who are you cooking for this early anyways?"

Shit, she thought. "None of your business."

"Why's it such a secret?" he pressed.

"It's not a secret, it's just not your business," she answered, nonchalantly, silently begging Merlin for the subject to be changed.

"Is it the guy who smokes those nasty cigars you smell like?"

"I don't smell like smoke. I made the mistake of having my bag with me then and I have it now," she argued, then followed up with a real answer, "and no, it is not."

"Is it someone I know?"

"Maybe," she mused. I don't even know who the guy is. For all I know, they could know each other. "I don't keep track of whom you do and do not know," she continued as she redonned her coat and pulled the hood up to cover as much of her face as it could. After all, the rain was still unrelenting in its abundance.

Meanwhile, Anton considered her through squinted eyes, "well good luck with getting that order filled this early in the morning."

"Oh, I'll get it filled," she said confidently as she strode towards the door.

"I don't doubt it," Anton shrugged. He rose to head into the back of the shop, "you can be very persuasive."

"Then why won't you fill the order?" she argued as he walked away.

"I've known you too long; I'm immune," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the back.

"If only you knew me," she mumbled towards the teenage boy, as she pushed open the door. Of course, between the distance between them, the mumbling, and the sound of the rain as she pushed the door open, he didn't hear her, but that was rather purposeful on her part.

She strode down the road aways until she was sure no one could see her. The rain provided a good cover, so she hadn't walked far until she stuck her hand out over the street, and waited.

Well, "waited" is a relative term. Not a moment later a large, purple, triple-decker bus sped out of nowhere and came to a screeching halt in front of her. Between the force of the bus stopping so quickly and the winds that had come with the rain, she toppled over, landing in the mud.

The doors opened with a hiss, and over the roaring of the bus, the wind, and the rain, she heard a voice shout, "Welcome to the Knight Bus! Emergency transport for-, oh step on out of the rain and I'll finish! Have you got any luggage?"

"Nope, Stan, it's just me," she answered in her best Welsh accent as she stepped up onto the platform and out of the rain.

"Cari!" Stan shouted as she removed her hood to reveal her face. She felt a pang of guilt for lying to such a non-threatening man about her identity. Nevertheless, she kept her composure.

"Hello again, Stan, it's very nice to see you," she smiled sweetly as she shook the excess water from her coat.

"I'll say, love, it's been too long. Where ya headed?"

"London, if it's not too much trouble."

"It's never too much trouble for you, love," he informed her while straightening his hat and tie.

"Oi! Quit chatting up the lady and get us moving, will you? We've places to be!" The shout came from a grumpy man nearby, and she realized just how crowded the bus was today. People had flooded the bottom floor and the raucous hum of the crowd made it apparent that the upper floors were certainly not empty either.

"You," Stan said pointing at him, "mind yourself, would you? Do you know who this is?" Stan gave him no time to answer, but instead informed him, "this is Cariad Driscoll, the most darling woman to ever come out of Wales. So shut it."

In that moment she no longer felt bad about giving him a fake name. From the get go he seemed to be kind of person who couldn't keep his mouth shut, and she was glad to keep her identity to those whom she chose to share it with, which did not include all the patrons of a rather crowded Knight Bus.

He turned to her again and said, "you must be freezing. Why don't cha head on up to the third deck and I'll bring ya up a hot water bottle and a hot chocolate. Free of charge."

"That hot chocolate cost me thirteen sickles!" The same grumpy man as before protested, but his words fell on deaf ears.

"Oh you know how motion sick I get on the third deck…" she said wearily looking up to the top of the chandelier.

"It ain't too crowded up there, love. We'll be hitting London soon."

After enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate and some small talk with a witch so elderly it was a wonder she had gotten up to the third deck, the woman bid Stan adieu, exited the Knight Bus, and emerged amidst the bustle of muggle London in the morning. It seemed it had rained here as well, as the streets were wet, but the sun was coming quickly out to dry them.

She traveled the streets, with a destination in mind, but not so much in haste. Buildings passed as she got lost in her thoughts. Sparky said he lives in London. I wonder where...

She came upon a small butcher shop, where she got her order filled (seems businesses are open early in the city, even if the people aren't as warm.) She glided down a street lined with houses, each identical to the last it seemed. They were all severe and pristine.

In fact, apart from a single piece of trash near her feet, the entire row was immaculate from the street to the house fronts themselves. The looked down at the one culprit providing blemish to the row. It was an apple, less one bite, rather dusty, and quite brown. Not wanting to touch it, she took out her pocket knife. She stabbed through a bruise, presumably present from its fall out a window she guessed, and scraped it off into a nearby trash bin.

The woman checked the time, and hurried off to catch a muggle train towards home.

Tail wagging. That was the first sound her ears registered after steadying herself. Well, steadying herself isn't really correct, as it only lasted a couple seconds. A big black dog quickly bowled her over.

He pinned her easily, (after continually fighting off a werewolf, a person was severely outmatched against him), and licked her cheek. She laughed, "hey, you."

They laid there for just a moment to take each other in, (it had been a couple days,) until she playfully shoved him off of her while saying, "I missed you too, Sparky.

"No notebook today?" she asked, a little disappointed.

He jerked his head towards the beech tree, where the notebook was lying in the shade.

"Well go get it," she laughed.

He stood there a moment, wondering why they weren't heading to their spot in the shade. He whined and jerked his head towards the shady oasis again.

"Nope. You knocked me down here, I'm stayin' here," she said as she settled in with her hands clasped behind her head, "if you want me to move you're going to have to pick me up and move me yourself, Sparky."

He quickly left to retrieve the book, grabbed it, trotted back over, and dropped it on her stomach. "Ouch!" she exclaimed. "Why do you insist on abusing me with this book? That's the second time, Sparky," she complained as she rubbed her stomach with one hand and opened the book with the other.

I could, you know, he wrote as soon as she had the book and pen opened.

"You could what?" she asked.

Pick you up and carry you over there.

"Ha," she said, with very little humor, "you wouldn't dare give up your precious anonymity."

I might. And I'm just saying I could. Potentially.

She dismissed him with a chuckle. "So are you hungry for lunch?"

If you made it, absolutely.

She pulled a container out of her knapsack, "my warning still stands. You may not like it, and if you don't, that's fine, don't eat it."

I'm not worried, Sunshine.

She unveiled the dish and set it in front of him.

He looked at it for a moment and wrote, it looks delicious. What is it?

"It's called 'carbonara.' It's a dish I was taught to make in Italy. But I couldn't get my hands on pancetta, so I had to use bacon. But I figure, you're English, you'll probably like it that way just fine."

I'm sure I will, love.

"Well, dig in as soon as you'd like."

The words had scarcely escaped her mouth before he was obeying. He tried to eat politely, (which is tough as a dog,) but his delicacy-free years in Azkaban had him craving… anything. Everything. If it was food, and more than the stuff they doled out in prison which hardly passed for food, he had trouble not gorging himself on every last bite he could get his hands… paws… on.

That was amazing. I'm not even sure what was in it but… wow.

She smiled, "glad you liked it."

It was then that he noticed the lack of a bowl for her. You're not eating, love?

She sat up, shaking her head, "I made it for you." It was then that she gathered her bag and dish he had just emptied and relocated to the shade.

He lay there in mild bewilderment at her move. Before she'd been very against getting up, when now she was willingly pulling herself to the shade.

As if she could read his mind, (a fact that momentarily frightened him, as that prospect wasn't too far from possible given she was a witch), she called, "oh, come on, we both know the sun's no good for you."

He gathered the notebook and pen and padded over to her.

As soon as he got there she warned, "DON'T. You dare. Drop that on my stomach again." He set it down gently on her middle and it flopped open to their previous page.

He wrote, I'll have you know I enjoy the sun. Just not when I have fur.

"Well you know the simple solution to that then," she pressed him with a smirk.

Yes, Sunshine, I'm aware.

She laughed and situated her bag beneath her head. In doing so her ring caught the light and in turn her companion's eye, "I believe I started last time, so go on. Shoot."

And he did. Your ring.

She held up her hand to look at it, "yeah? I told you about it already."

It just still floors me that you've not married yet.

"Who are you, my mother?" she laughed. "Trust me I'll let you know if it changes, but no, Sparky, I am not married." She paused, then added, "I've got plenty of time if I want to get married. You're thirty-four and you haven't gotten around to it, and I'm only twenty-seven, so quit pestering me about it. I've already got my sister on my case and that's more than enough."

One of her points caught him completely off-guard. He cocked his head to the side and started at her.

"...what?" she asked when she noticed his change in demeanor.

He wrote, you said you're twenty-seven.

"Sure," she said, waiting for a further explanation.

Last week you told me you were twenty-six.

"Yeah, last week I was twenty-six," she said, not following why he was confused.

And now you're twenty-seven? I missed your birthday?

"No," she stated. "You didn't miss it, you didn't know it was happening."

Sunshine.

She blinked, waiting for him to continue.

Please tell me I didn't see you on your birthday, at least. I hate to think I sat here with you and didn't even wish you a happy birthday.

She didn't meet his eye line after reading. Instead she held the pond in her gaze while she waited for the scratching of the pen on the notebook to stop.

When it did, she read, Sunshine, I am terribly sorry for seeing you on your birthday and not getting you a gift or even acknowledging it. Rest assured, as soon as I find a gift worthy enough, I will bring it to you.

She laughed, "Sparky, that's sweet, but it's really not necessary. Besides you already gave me a gift."

How do you figure?

"My birthday was the day you brought the notebook. I finally got to actually talk with you. Well, not talk, exactly, but, ya know, communicate back and forth. It was a great birthday."

All of the sudden, an idea dawned on him. A crazy idea. A stupid, dangerous… wonderful… idea.

Hey, Sunshine? he wrote.

"Yes, Sparky?" she answered.

...do you trust me?

"Do I trust the animagus who won't, no matter how many delicious dishes I make him, tell me who he is?" she asked with a chuckle. "...more than I should. Why?"

He eyed her bag. You don't have a jumper in there do you? he asked motioning towards it.

"You're not cold, are you, Sparky?" she joked with a smirk, pulling it out.

He couldn't even register her humor; his heart was pounding too hard from the suggestion he was about to make. He took a deep breath and wrote, do something for me?

"Alright, hun, you're getting weird…"

You said you trust me, right?

She grinned, "partially."

Well, trust me. Cover your eyes with it, yeah? It's for your birthday present. And no peaking!

She hesitated, but lifted the cloth above her eyes. Just before her sight was blackened by the garment, she lifted it again and looked at him. "Just so you know," she warned, "if you try to attack or murder me or something, I'm not keeping your makeshift blindfold on." Then she quietly added, "plus, I could totally take you."

She settled the jumper over her eyes and waited.


	12. o12

Silently, he took a deep breath. He couldn't believe this. What am I doing? This is mad… he thought.

Here he was, in broad daylight, with a total stranger (nearly), completely human. Granted, she was somewhat blindfolded and therefore absolutely oblivious to his recent transformation, but... still.

He watched her spin her ring around her finger again and again. She was starting to get antsy, why do I have to be blindfolded?

He took one more breath in an attempt to calm himself and opened his mouth. As steadily as he could despite his racing heart, he spoke, "hi, Sunshine."

Her fingers on her ring stopped. She was completely frozen on the outside but inside her heart and her mind were going a mile a minute. Whatever she had expected to happen, it wasn't this, and despite her fight or flight mechanism kicking in on account of her temporary blindness, she stayed still, taking in the situation.

After a moment which, to him, seemed to take nearly an eternity, she spoke as evenly as she could. "Hello, Sparky."

Another long moment passed. As their new circumstances renewed their uncertainty of each other, they were unsure of what to say.

It was she who broke the stalemate. "I have to say, this is not what I expected from the man who seems to regard his anonymity as his most prized possession."

He let out a quiet chuckle, "that is definitely not what I regard as my most prized possession, Sunshine."

She smiled at the sound of his voice, but it faded quickly. "You haven't told me to take this off. Something tells me you're not going to."

His smile vacated his face as well as he answered, "no, I'm not."

She nodded.

"It's just…" he started, "I'm not ready for that. You're not ready for that. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. It's gonna throw you for quite a loop."

She nodded again but pressed him, "so you do intend to reveal yourself in the future."

He shrugged, "I have to. It's not fair to expect you to be patient forever."

His answer was the product of several talks with his friends. They clashed on whether or not he could tell her who he is, whether or not it was fair to keep her so heartlessly in the dark about his identity, and even whether or not seeing her at all was truly safe. Needless to say, they were very divided. Sirius had found himself standing alone in his opinions most of the time.

She considered his thoughts. "So what has to happen for me to be ready?" she asked, then quickly added, "or for you to be ready, or… I don't really know what I'm talking about…"

He deliberated over how to answer. "There's not really a set procedure here, Sunshine," he chuckled. She smiled at the sound of his laugh. "Unless I work up the courage to show you, I'm sure you'll just get fed up with me soon and demand to know."

"Do I really seem like the type to demand? I like to think I'm much more cunning and clever than that," she informed him. "I'll just convince you into it," she added with grin.

"Oh, I'd like to see you try," he replied, sounding confident.

She raised her eyebrows under her jumper, grin still plainly on her face, "you have no idea what you're getting yourself into, Sparky."

He smiled, "well, whatever I've gotten myself into, so far I've enjoyed it."

She appreciated the comment but changed the topic question, asking, "so you asked me yet again about my marital status, so it's my turn to ask you something."

"What? No, I didn't get to learn anything new about you."

"Hey, it's not my fault you asked a pointless question."

"Would you answer a follow-up question?" he leveled.

She considered the request, "I guess that's fair. Shoot."

"Your sister."

She nodded, "Rosie. Yeah?"

"Rosie?" he questioned, his mind drifting to his late friend, Lily, also named for a flower. Lily's sister's name was a flower too… maybe the principle extended here? "Okay this isn't my question, but it's valid. Is your name a flower too?"

"Nice try, Sparky," she spoke with a smirk, "but I'm not telling you my name."

"I'm not asking your name, I'm just asking if it's a flower," he pointed out.

"It is not a flower," she confirmed, "you'll never guess it, so give up. Now what did you want to know about my sister?"

"She's on your case about getting married? I thought you and Rosie didn't get on," he prompted.

"It's Rosaleen, actually. She hates Rosie, but that's what I called her as a kid and then we fell out of each other's lives for a while, so…" she trailed off in her explanation. "Anyways, we reconnected a little when I went to live in Ireland again, and then my mother passed away and we got through it together, I guess. So now we're… well, we're not best friends but we are family. And she wants her kids to have cousins, so she's dying for me to get married."

"I'm sorry to hear about your mom," he offered.

"Thank you, but it's okay. It was a while back."

He reverted to their former topic, "so you have nieces and nephews?"

"Two nephews, a niece, and one more on the way," she replied.

"Tell me about them?" he requested.

"Well Owen is six, and Kyle just turned four, so they're finally both getting old enough to be really fun. Ya know, they're old enough to learn how to play Quidditch a little and how to make degnoming gardens more entertaining, much to their mother's dismay. Rosie's not always fond of leaving me alone alone with them; she's says by the time I leave they've learned eight new ways to get into mischief.

"And then Rosalie is about a year and a half, so she's walking now, which is cool, and then we'll see about the new one," she ended thoughtfully. "You don't have nieces or nephews then?"

"No, my brother died unmarried. But I do have a godson," he offered.

"Yeah? What's he like?"

"He's wonderful. He's fantastic at Quidditch and he's gotten into his fair share of mischief, just like his dad. James, that's his dad," he answered, remembering the Quidditch game he was able to see at Hogwarts.

She nodded, "James from school?"

"Yeah, my best mate."

"Well I'm sure having you for a godfather makes up a little for losing his dad," she suggested, trying to keep him from missing his friend.

"Thanks," he started, "I hope so. Those kids are really lucky to have you as their aunt."

"Thank you, I'll have to remind them how lucky they are next time I see them," she joked.

As his laughter subsided, they fell, as they often did, into a quietness. His mind however, was not quite as idle. This won't last forever, a voice in his head that sounded slightly like Moony's reminded him.

Bugger off, he scolded his own mind. He was going to drag this out for as long as was humanly possible. Their meetings, their conversations, the mystery, the intrigue… the odd understanding of each other even with so much left untouched… the friendship that seemed they'd had all their lives despite always learning new things. He relished it all.

Here, with her… he wasn't "Sirius Black: Mass Murder" or "Sirius Black: Convict" or in his school days, "Sirius Black: Prankster" or even "Sirius Black: Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold" as many a schoolgirl had wanted him to be a couple decades ago. Here he wasn't frightening or threatening or intimidating. He wasn't expected to adhere to any of the titles he'd received in the past. To Sunshine, he was just Sparky. And he was coming to like this version of himself best.

He turned to look over at her, lying quietly in the grass, presumably lost in her own mind. She managed to make having a jumper thrown haphazardly across one's face seem almost in vogue. She was still quite the sight to take in.

"Stop it," she interrupted his thoughts.

He blinked. "Stop what?" he asked confused.

"Staring at me," she answered nonchalantly.

A pang of panic hit his chest. Fuck. "You don't know if I'm staring at you. You can't see me," he said, more to assure himself than anything.

"No, I can't see you, but I've lived a lot of places. I was the new girl on plenty of occasions, and people stare at what's new. I've gotten to know the feeling well. It's like a sixth sense," she offered.

He didn't respond, just blinked, eyes not straying from the focal point of his recent happiness. After another moment she spoke again, "you're still doing it," she teased.

He saw an opportunity and took it, "with beauty like that, can you blame me?" he flirted.

She laughed but stayed focused, "flattery will get you nowhere with me. This is so not fair."

"What's not fair?"

"This," she motioned to her veiled eyes. "You can see me, but I can't see you. Your face is right there, and I'm lying here blindfolded."

"I didn't mean for this to be torment, I mean, this was supposed to be a birthday gift," he said, shifting to locate the notebook. "Look we have the notebook, I'll just-"

"No!" she cut him off. "I mean, I don't… want you to. I'm really enjoying my birthday gift. ...I like listening to you. I… like your voice a lot," she admitted.

A grin graced his face, "yeah?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I spent weeks just listening to you try to be silent behind me, then a days of just barks… it's nice to actually hear you. It's…" she trailed off.

"It's…?" he repeated, wondering why she hadn't finished her sentence.

"I guess there's no way to say it without sounding stupid, so you can't make fun of me," she informed him.

"I can't make that promise, Sunshine," he replied with an anticipatory grin plastered on his face.

"Well then I won't tell you. You'll just be forced to wonder all night tonight," she teased.

"Who says I wonder about you at night?"

"Oh don't act like you don't, Sparky. I mean, us? This situation? It… compels a certain amount of… curiosity," she concluded. "But I mean it's a two way street."

"Oh I see," he responded, that smirk of his finding its way back home to his face. "So you wonder about me late at night, eh?"

"I don't think I ever said 'late,'" she countered. "And come on you're honestly telling me you don't?"

She had a point. Who wouldn't be curious about someone in this situation? And when you track on the added circumstance that he had, well, nearly nothing, else going on in his life, it was safe to say he took part in his own fair share of wondering.

"I do," he admitted, a little defeatedly.

A confident smile appeared on her face, "that's what I thought."

However, he water no time in defending himself, "but it's just because I don't know your name. As soon as you give it up," my curiosity will be sated and all be bored with you." A clear lie.

She was not convinced. "Is that so?"

"That is so."

"Well then I'll put you out of your misery and tell you," she offered, a little too eagerly for honesty.

He didn't believe her, "alright, go on." Still, he watched her intently.

After a pause long enough for him to blink twice, she offered, "it's, uh, Rosemarie."

Rosemarie, he thought. Very pretty name; definitely not her name. "No it's not."

"Yes it is," she insisted casually.

"No. Sunshine. It's not."

"How would you know? Sparky."

"Oh, come on," he chuckled as the obviousness of her statement. "Rosaleen and Rosemarie? That would've driven your parents mad."

"Mmm." She hadn't thought that one through.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. So what is not really then?" he tried to ask casually, hoping she wouldn't remember how carefully she was guarding her identity.

"Not telling," she echoed her answer from earlier in the week.

"Will you tell me if I guess it?"

"You will never guess it, Sparky," she retorted, "that I can promise you."

"Well you'll never guess mine either."

"That's fine; then I won't guess."

He huffed. "You're maddening, you know that?"

"Ha," she chortled, "so I've been told. Many a time, and by many a person."

He shook his head with a smile. "So my voice," he brought them back on track.

Her smile morphed into pursed lips, clearly thinking of how to answer. "Right…," she paused to think, "okay…" another introspective pause, "so…" yet another pause, "alright. As a dog, you are rather large and… imposing? Maybe that's the right word. Anyways, your bark was very gentle, and, I can't see your face, but your voice is… nice."

"Nice," he repeated her vague explanation.

"It's... somehow comforting," she clarified.

"Comforting," he repeated happily.

"That's the biggest compliment you're getting while you have the upper hand here," she said while gesturing to the jumper still strewn across her face.

"That's more than fair," he concluded.

"I believe it's my question, yeah?"

"Yes, Sunshine, ask away."

"Animagus," she began slowly, "why?"

It was a more difficult question than it seemed. To help one my best mates, a werewolf, so he didn't hurt himself and others during his transformations; that was the lowdown. But it wasn't the answer he wanted to give. It wasn't the secrecy of Remus' condition; that had been blown wide open a few weeks prior to all of Hogwarts, and presumably to their parents and families… Word can travel quick. He would know.

No, he didn't want to tell her for a slightly more selfish, but ultimately judicious reason. He was Sirius Black. He was a convict. A fugitive. An outcast. And she was… something else. If ever she were to stick around knowing his identity, it was probably best not to tack on kinship with a werewolf. Who knows what her views already had so much working against him.

"I mean," she drew him from his thoughts for the second time that day, "you said you did this at fifteen? I can think of a handful of somewhat juvenile reasons for doing so, which may not be far off considering you were fifteen, but what's the story there? And why a dog?"

He mulled over how to respond. He hated lying to her, even in omission, but he felt he had no other choice right now. So he gave her a watered-down version.

"I did it to help a friend."

She nodded, accepting his answer even though it did little to placate her curiosity. "A friend who… was being tormented by cats? Why a dog?"

He laughed, "not quite, although I do believe he's not particularly fond of cats. A dog because… it worked. It worked for the situation and it worked for me."

"Wow," she said, her voice lacking all amazement despite the interjection.

"What do you mean, 'wow?'" he asked mocking her tone.

"I mean you managed to supply me with absolutely zero information there."

"Well, you should've asked a better question," he teased.

"I plan to," she shot back.

"Have at it," he dared her.

The challenge hung in the air, seeming to make their latest lull thick with anticipation until he probed her, "go on."

"I said 'I plan to,' not 'I have my next question planned,'" she retorted, then added, "okay, will you tell me a story from school about being an Animagus?"

He looked up at the clouds and thought of a way to grant her request without bringing up a werewolf. He just wasn't sure on how that would settle. "Hmm, alright. I can tell you about the real-life ghost story I inspired at school," he offered.

"A ghost story?" she questioned. He was sure he would've seen the newfound curiosity dancing in her eyes had they been visible, but he was content with just her anticipatory smile.

"A ghost story," he repeated.

"But you're not a ghost," he stated.

"I am not a ghost," he confirmed.

"Quit repeating everything I say," she said with mild annoyance.

"Quit repeating everything I say!" he teased in a high-pitched, whiny voice.

She laughed despite being the butt of the joke, "how old are you again? Thirty-four? You're certain you're not fourteen? ...and I do not sound like that."

"Of course you don't but I couldn't miss the opportunity."

"Fair," she admitted. "Now go on."

"Alright, so at my school…" he began as he launched into the edited version of his first night in the Shrieking Shack.

He was in the middle of the story, saying, "and I suppose there was quite a bit of commotion and noise," when he was cut off.

A hiss escaped her suddenly clenched jaws and a grimace overtook her features as she suddenly clasped her hands together, holding one in the other.

He stopped speaking as he was rather alarmed.

"Sorry," she choked out. Pain strained her usually charming voice.

"Sunshine, are you alright? What happened?" he asked, panic creeping into his bloodstream.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," she insisted, though the sharpness of the piercing ache in her hand was making itself clear in her tone. "It's just my hand. You know my fingers that I hurt in that junkyard?"

He nodded, forgetting she couldn't see him.

She continued without confirmation, trying to focus on her words and not her hand where she was trying desperately to rub the pain away, "my dad took my to a crack healer, and then a back-alley muggle doctor and it definitely didn't heal correctly. So occasionally I get these intensely sharp phantom limb pains through that part of my wrist and up into my fingertips."

He said nothing, just looked at her hands, wishing he could do something to help.

"I'll be fine in a few minutes. You can keep telling the story; I'm sorry for interrupting."

"Don't be sorry, love, I'm sorry about your hand…" he trailed off, not knowing what to say, but knowing an apology would do nothing to ease the pain she was experiencing. She nodded in reply. He figured listening to a story might do something to take her mind off it, so he continued.

It wasn't his best story telling, as he was distracted and concerned with her current state. Over the next couple minutes there was a fair amount of pausing, trailing off, repeating parts, and backtracking. He hadn't taken his eyes off her hands. Her method hadn't seemed to alleviate her discomfort.

"Really, I'll be okay in a second, I'm sure," she insisted when he went several seconds without trying to distract her.

"Can I do anything to help?" The helplessness was evident in his voice.

"I know you're distracted, but finishing the story really will help me concentrate on… not my hand," she explained.

"Right," he said, eager to make her feel better. "So anyways waited until we thought the coast was clear and we got back up to the school without too much trouble, and snuck back into our dormitory. And the next day we were legends, of sorts. No one knew it was us, but they all described waking up in the middle of the night to rather haunting sounds and…"

He sighed not being able to concentrate when he knew she was possible agony. It looked painful. Her lips were drawn in and face was pale from the prolonged tightness of her facial muscles in pain. She looked stiff as a board, as it seemed every muscle in her body was tensed in response to the situation. Clearly her technique wasn't cutting it.

He reached a hand out towards her, but stopped a hand's length away, not wanting to frighten her during this ordeal.

"May I?" he asked softly as his fingertips brushed the back of her pained hand.

She froze for a second, not expecting any physical contact. Then she pushed her hand slightly back against his and nodded.

As he took her hand and guided it towards him, his assumption that all of her muscles were tensed was confirmed, as it took some coaxing. She did her best to relax her arm instead of drawing it into herself as she had. Instead she compensated by clenching her other hand into a rather tight fist.

He gently propped her elbow in the grass and rested her forearm against the side of his ribcage. Her fingers were shaking. Then he clasped both his hands around her injured one. He could clearly feel the strained muscles in her hand. It seemed as though they had clenched on their own accord and were not about to let up without some calculated convincing. He took a breath and set to work.

He began by kneading his thumbs into her outer palm where the pain seemed to be concentrated judging by how she had been trying to mitigate it. Equal parts of deep, slow, pressure and concentrated circles seemed to be his gameplan. After her palm softened slightly, he applied the same technique as he moved up into her fingers, taking his time to massage the muscles in each of her joints into a state of relaxation. He then moved back through her palm quickly to her wrist, which he patiently massaged as well.

His eyes alternated between watching what he was doing, and searching for clues that what he was doing was helping, and he found them. He saw her fist loosen a little, then give way completely, and her toes uncurl. These were followed by her lips reappearing from their tightened state and her shoulders sinking back down into the grass.

As her wrist became limp, he shifted her arm to be able to rub a small portion of that as well, just beyond her wrist. Her hand was soon putty in his own, and he thought he could see a tiny thankful and relieved smile on her face.

"Is it starting to feel a little better, Sunshine?" he asked gently.

She gave him an immediate but slow nod.

He smiled, content with himself for fixing the situation. "Do you want me to keep going?"

She took a moment, then nodded again. If you're willing to, yes, she thought. This feels wonderful.

He didn't mind at all, and continued without missing a beat.

Though the pain had melted into a distant memory, she was still concentrated on her hand and the newfound pleasant feelings she was experiencing. She could feel her elbow flex and unflex slightly with the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed slowly and evenly. His hands, which managed to somehow grasp her own very intentionally while he massaged her palm again and then each of her fingers and the pad of her thumb, still felt gentle, as though he was treating something very fragile. His hands were warm but rough; they seemed like the hands of a very protective and deliberate man.

They had now spent several minutes in silence, and he felt it was about time to break that. He continued on, finishing his story.

"Anyways, that night was the subject of many exaggerations throughout the school that week. We went back from time to time and the assumptions and stories continued, and it's still a story around there today. Almost twenty years later," he concluded. "Wow, almost twenty years…" he trailed off in astonishment. As he did his fingers paused as well, in part because of his reminiscing, and in part because the amount of time he had spent rubbing her fingers was becoming apparent in his own.

She flexed her fingers a bit, bringing him back to reality, and softly addressed him, "thank you. That feels so much better."

"My pleasure."

They were both a little sad to have that end. In his second bold burst of confidence of the day, he slid his fingers in between hers and smoothly nestled their joined hands in the grass between them.

His heart was racing. He didn't know what had come over him. What if she's totally creeped out? She doesn't know who I am at all, this is way too far.

Her heart had received a slight jolt as well when she felt his gesture.

Deciding less is in fact more sometimes, she didn't acknowledge their intertwined fingers. Instead she answered with, "that's a pretty impressive story."

He went along with the ignoring their junction. "So does that answer your question?"

She chuckled, "yes, it does. Your turn."

"Alright, let me think…"

"Take your time," she encouraged.

He began searching the depths of his brain for something interesting to ask her, but he couldn't concentrate. His eyes were glued to what he could see of her face, trying to read what she thought about him taking hold of her hand. He was sure she hadn't let go out of politeness or awkwardness.

"You're doing it again," she informed him.

"Doing what?" he asked trying to hide his worry.

"Staring," she answered with a soft chuckle.

He couldn't find a witty comeback anywhere in him, so he settled on blatant honesty for a change. "I'm trying to gauge your reaction."

"To?"

"To…" he lifted their hands slightly, and laid them back in the grass.

"Well I haven't stopped smiling, have I?"

And with that answer his face broke out into the biggest smile he'd had in quite some time.

"I mean," she joked, "I can't see myself, so you'd know better than me, but I feel like I'm smiling."

"You definitely are smiling," he answered, then more to himself than her, "I love that smile."

She hadn't been expecting that, "yeah?"

"Yeah, it lights up my day. Merlin, it could light up the entire forest behind us."

Her smile grew a little at that.

"There it is," he said sounded rather content.

Needless to say, they both left that day with a little extra spring in their step.


	13. o13

To each of you who have followed, favorited, and reviewed this, I would like to extend a great deal of thanks. You make the fan fiction world go round.

She clutched at her sides as they started to cramp. It was difficult to keep her eyes open in this state. It was all his fault. But, as her abdominal muscles loosened, her eyes stopped tearing and opened fully, and her laughter subsided, she addressed him, "You've got to be kidding; there's just no way!"

 _I wouldn't lie to you, Sunshine, it really happened,_ he wrote back.

"That is absolutely inspiring. You know, one troublemaker to another," she responded.

 _We ended up getting a month's worth of detention for that particular stunt, mind you, but I still think it was worth it._

As she smiled to herself trying to figure out if she had any stories to top his, he wrote, _you know what you haven't done today?_

"What's that?" she asked.

 _You haven't said anything about my identity. No little comments asking me to reveal myself, no teasing that I don't know your name… nothing._

She nodded, her mind still deep in thought, not reminiscing over her past schemes, but instead, solemnly speculating how to respond. "Yeah…" she began. "I decided I'm not going to do that anymore."

 _Seriously?_ he asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'm still dying to know," she began as her hand stroked down his back. "You said that I'm not ready, or you're not ready, or… whatever it is. Anyways, I've liked spending time with you these past couple weeks. It's been really great."

That last bit was unanimously felt. It had been really great. There had been the time they had done scarcely anything but deeply discussed the hierarchy of wizarding candy; they spent another liaison having a multitude of starling contests, after which the loser had to tell a secret off some sort; one afternoon was whittled away sharing the lies they'd told to get out of various things and to cover-up their past troublemaking.

The two did share quieter times together, but it was never due to a lack of things to say. They never seemed to run out.

"If or when it happens, I'll be delighted to meet you in the flesh, but until then I'm trying to just enjoy this for what it is," she explained further. "...besides no matter who you are, you'll always be Sparky to me."

As dusk lurked along the horizon, they parted ways. Now, as Sirius lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as he had become accustomed to, a murky dawn was already prowling around his curtains. He hadn't managed much sleep, and the rest he had managed had been haunted by her words.

 _No matter who you are, you'll always be Sparky to me._

At first that sentiment had made his heart soar even higher than he and Buckbeak had on their escape. After all, the name "Sirius Black" evoked some very different pictures depending on who you asked. Some of those versions of himself, however valid or exaggerated, he detested. Others he didn't bat an eye at. But the rendition of himself that he was at the pond, the side of himself that shown in the sunshine, with his Sunshine, was the best one. He was not guilty; he was not disowned; he was not forgotten; he was not hunted; he was not pitied; and he was not alone. He was acknowledged, appreciated, accepted. With her, he felt he was the best person he could ever hope to be. With her, he was himself.

But the bliss of that moment faded, as bliss often does, and the same avowal began to harrow and pester him. Because the truth can be cruel. And the truth was, he was not a cute, soft, wandering puppy with a magical notebook and pen who was just a little too shy to show his face.

The unfortunate truth was he was a lot of things he didn't want to be. He was a victim of circumstance. After all, circumstance is a brutal captor, and it seemed to have personal vendetta against him. All his life, it had never let up. And the truth was no matter how he felt with her, he was all of those things; he had been found guilty and disowned; he was being hunted, day and night, far and wide; he had been forgotten and left to rot.

The fact of the matter was he was letting her spend hours upon hours getting to know a man who was wanted, hated, in hiding, and thought to be a brutal mass murderer of thirteen innocent people. And now he was a fraud. His exterior hid the truth, but it was all there just below the surface. Was it really fair to keep letting her get so attached when he was basically a walking lie?

All this and more was what had let the night waste away with sleep yet to be seen. Still, that murky dawn had wormed its way between his curtains and was slowly slithering across the floor to mark Sirius' bedroom as its own. He didn't fight it. It seemed sleep had been scared off and was not coming back anytime soon, so he stood and sauntered over to the curtains, which he whipped apart to let the morning light bathe the room.

He looked out across miles of muddy clouds that seemed to invade one another with no regard for personal space. His brain was the same, thoughts all running into and messing about with one another. He willed his mind to give up on coming to any sort of conclusion or solution, and stalked off to the bathroom to splash some water on his face.

Meanwhile, miles away, the woman was too looking out her window at what she was certain was more clouds she had ever seen together in all her life. They seemed to fall apart and invade the air with a plenitude of fog right down to the grass. She hoped the impending rain would hold off until after she and her companion were to meet later.

It didn't, of course. As she Apparated to their clearing of shared solace, she opened her eyes to the sight of a nearly impenetrable curtain of water. She was drenched in a moment. Peering through the rain as best she could, her eyes fell upon a truly sad sight. It was a big black dog, sitting patiently, fur matted down and dripping, even in the small shelter of the beech tree. The edges of their precious notebook were puffy and swollen from being waterlogged, and even though he was positively shivering, his tail still managed to wag as she made her way over toward him.

He shoved the book into her hand and as soon as she opened it, trying her best to shield it from the relentless precipitation, he wrote out a sarcastic, _way to bring the sunshine, Sunshine._

"How long have you been waiting to say that?" she asked with a smile and a roll of her eyes.

 _Long enough to be soaking wet._

"I noticed, you look freezing too. Do you want to meet up later? Or tomorrow?"

 _No, I want the damn rain to stop._

She smiled, "well I can't much make that happen." Then it dawned on her, "hey Sparky, do you trust me?"

 _No. Not since you said you don't like chocolate frogs anyway._

"I just said there's better chocolate out there than chocolate frogs," she corrected, "come on, do you trust me?"

 _I suppose I trust you, yes,_ he admitted, _why?_

She held her hand out to him as she prepared to Apparate them, "come on, we're going somewhere dry."

He hesitated. He hadn't been human around her since he had given her her birthday gift.

"Come on, I'll keep my eyes closed. We're getting soaked, let's go!" she urged him with her promise not to look already fulfilled.

He didn't protest further. Truth was, he was losing his edge around her. His original reaction to her had been to run. Now he was trusting her to go Godric knows where.

He slid his muddy hand into hers, after all, he had been waiting in the grass for quite some time, "sorry for the mud, love. You were late."

"Oh please, you know you were early," she answered. And before he could protest, he was standing somewhere new.

The first thing he realized, even before he opened his eyes, was that he was no longer being pelted by raindrops. Next he noticed they were in some sort of thicket which was rather rocky underfoot.

"Alright, before we start walking," she started, "I'm just going to warn you. I don't live in a mansion with house elves like you. My house doesn't have enough spare room to swing a Kneazle."

"I do not live in a mansion," he assured her. _Far from it,_ he added in his head, "and I have one house elf, who is older than magic itself I'm convinced. He hasn't done anything helpful in about a decade. It's more like having a ghoul around."

"Likely story. I'm holding to the assumption that you're rich and famous." He chuckled at her determination before she continued, "I can't walk too well with my eyes closed."

"Right," he answered before he let go of her hand to change back into a dog. She could've sworn just before he removed his hand from hers, she felt him give a quick, light squeeze. It could have just been wishful thinking on her part, but either way she had to fight to keep the corners of her mouth from turning upwards too much.

They exited the thicket and as they followed the rock-ribbed path around the bend, his eyes fell upon her home.

She was right. Its size was nothing by which to be impressed. Seeing as the front held just five windows, and it seemed to be perfectly rectangular, his estimation held that it was probably just big enough for a handful of rooms in total.

But its lack of size didn't mean it wasn't striking. Constructed entirety of deep red brick (apart from a wood-painted-white front porch that seemed slightly out of place), with lush green vines intermittently gracing the facade, it stood alone in the countryside amidst wild fields. Far different from his own derelict dwelling smack in the middle of the city.

The building seemed perfectly balanced. The rectangular shape of the home was reflected in its congruence to the bricks and the windows. The ivy was the only thing to throw the balance to the dogs. It was far from uniform. Some areas were untouched by its leaves. Others were overcrowded with the plant, for example, the top left window looked as though it could scarcely open due to said ivy.

They made their way, wordlessly, up the three steps of the front porch. It was small, just large enough to hold a small, well-used rocking chair and an unmatched side table on one side, and a very large planter on the other, holding a variety of flowers and the like. What the first side lacked in color, the other side made up for tenfold.

She strode up to the door, opened it, and stepped inside, all without losing her stride. He on the other hand paused on the porch and whined.

She turned around. "What is it, Sparky? Not grand enough for you?" she teased.

He barked twice in response, their age old sign for "no," and whined again looking at the notebook that had ended up in her hand before they began their journey out of the rain.

"Oh," she replied and swiftly opened the notebook and uncapped the pen for him.

He immediately set to work, writing out, _do you not lock your door? For someone who describes herself as a 'private person' that doesn't seem to track…_

"Take a look at the door knob."

He turned his attention to where she had requested and saw that the door's handle was golden. In fact, it was a Golden

Snitch.

"Flesh memory. Only I can get in," she explained. "A couple people have a password too… But you wouldn't be able to get in if you came back, just so you know, so I'm not too worried about bringing you here," she answered the question he hasn't even asked yet.

As he stepped softly into her home, she shed her dripping jacket and her soaked shoes. "Well I'm going to go change my clothes. Do you mind if I dry you off?"

 _Not at all; I'd highly appreciate that._

She smiled, "let me just grab my wand."

She strutted away and he took in his surroundings. Immediately inside the door was a living room stretching the length of the home to the right, and continuing to the staircase on the left edge, filling the house's front half. It seemed to have been furnished over time with its furniture mismatched in both style and wear.

There was a piano wedged along the front wall, which the window shown onto, showing many scratches and a thin layer of dust. It seemed it had once been well-used but now drew less attention. As he turned towards the side wall, he saw that the room housed magical and muggle artifacts alike on its many bookshelves. In fact she probably could've skipped painting the room altogether seeing as the wall was covered almost completely in bookshelves, from floor to ceiling.

The center of the room played host to a mismatched couch and loveseat (holding a set of pillows which actually did match for a change), arranged in an L-shape framing a rug upon the otherwise wooden floor, with end tables at the corner and ends, housing muggle lamps, a stack of stone coasters (which seemed odd considering the many ring-shaped stains on the wood), and a large book, opened and upside down to save her page.

As his eyes scanned the room and lifted higher, he saw that the living room gave way to the kitchen. The two rooms were divided only by the counter jutting out from the right wall, parallel to the front and back of the house. As one walked through the house, they passed through the living room then into the kitchen, table and staircase on the left, kitchen on the right, and then directly out the back door.

She was in the kitchen, rummaging through drawers for her wand. He waited patiently on her doormat, though he was a bit confused. What kind of witch doesn't keep her wand with her? Or at least know where it is.

"Here we go," she said making her way over to him. "You may want to close your eyes."

He obliged and was soon enveloped in a warm gust of air from her wand. It tingled slightly as it dried and warmed him from head to tail.

After she thought he was dry she stopped and he opened his eyes. He blinked twice, then looked around to locate where she had put the notebook down. When he saw it on an end table next to the loveseat near the door, he strode over to it and began writing.

 _Thank you, Sunshine,_ she read when she came up behind him.

"My pleasure, Sparky. I'm going to change clothes. Make yourself at home," she bid him as she moved along the staircase.

He took the few moments she was gone to take a better look at the room. The bookcases held an assortment of books on the bottom shelves, but the top ones did not. Those were home to a variety of magical and muggle artifacts alike.

His eyes fell upon a piece of wood with two tubes filled with silver liquid in the center, along with what looked like two small clock faces and dials that seemed to correspond to them. Next was a set of muggle brass scales with multiple platforms. After that came a photograph that caught his attention.

It held two young girls, who looked a couple years apart in age, on some sort of coastline amidst a colony of funny looking birds. The older looking of the two was standing towards the edge of the frame, bundled up with her arms folded across her chest, eyeing the birds around her suspiciously. She didn't seem too thrilled with her position.

The younger of the two girls was just the opposite. It seemed she had shed her coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, as they were strewn haphazardly about the ground. She was crouched, coyly trying to sneak up and catch one of the birds. When that failed, she knelt down and held her hand out to coax one of the birds towards her. Once she was able to scoop one into her arms, she beamed proudly, and turned to show the older girl, who in turn took a step away and looked at the bird catcher as though she was crazy. The animal lover didn't care; she seemed she had conquered what she had set out to and grinned at the camera, showing it the bird instead.

He tore his eyes away from the scene to finish out the row. There was a stack of papers with a spatula on top to serve as a paperweight, a sleek black wooden box with a latch on the front, a crystal king from a chess set (though the rest of the set was missing), and a candle that had seen better days, though the stand was polished silver adorned with tiny emeralds (he quickly passed this one by, as it drew out his hatred for his family's love of Slytherin).

The next item caught his attention. He had never seen one in person but he was familiar enough with them in theory. It was a Foe-Glass.

 _Why does Sunshine have a Foe-Glass?_ he wondered. He was once again reminded and now painfully aware that he was in the house of a stranger.

She came bounding down the steps and skidded into the living room. She lifted the notebook from the end table that she had left it on and flopped onto the couch. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"

The pen began to move as he made he way over to her. _I believe you were failing to defend your dislike for chocolate frogs._

She laughed and rolled her eyes at his words, "I like them just fine, I'm just saying that there is better chocolate out there." A questioning look came over her face and she peered into her kitchen. She held up a finger to ask him to wait, lifted herself from the couch, and glided into the kitchen.

For lack of anything better to do, he followed her into the kitchen and sat himself down next to the table. It was then that he took a real look at her kitchen. Once again, it presented a meld of muggle and magical parts. She had a muggle refrigerator, but just a stride away was a cast iron pot in her sink being scrubbed silly by a charmed brush.

The mix of muggle and magical parts however was easy to overlook when he considered the decor in this room. Every surface imaginable was covered by child's drawings and paintings. Some rather artfully done, others much more crude, but they covered the cabinets in their entirety. One cabinet however was void of the colorful paper. Though, to be fair, it had been painted on directly.

"Found it!" she exclaimed, drawing his attention back to her. "This is far better than chocolate frogs. It's muggle, too."

The pen and notebook that she had discarded on the counter came to life again. _I doubt muggle chocolate is better than wizarding chocolate._

She ignored this, instead asking, "can you have chocolate? I mean, dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate… does that translate to you?"

 _No. And even if it did, I'd keep eating it anyways. I love it too much and I haven't been able to have much in a while._

She chuckled opening the package and rummaging through her cabinets for the appropriate dishes, "you've been on a diet or something?"

He had another small moment of panic and thought, _oh shit, I need to be careful. Okay, keep it cool._ He decided to keep it vague and wrote back, s _omething like that._

She chuckled, "alright, Sparky. Well this is called 'tsokolate.' I had it while I was staying in the Philippines. It's the best hot chocolate on the planet."

 _The Philippines? I've never been. When were you there?_

She thought as she boiled some water, then answered, "I spent some time there soon after I turned ten… or just before. I can't recall for sure, but then I was there again when I was sixteen."

 _Sixteen was the year you were almost killed by Quidditch and sea urchins, correct?_

She rolled her eyes with a smile on her face, "more things happened that year than that incident."

 _Well enlighten me then, Sunshine. I'm all ears._

"Okay," she voiced her acceptance of the challenge. "Let's see… that is the year I perfected my grandmother's chicken soup recipe. I also was convinced that year that anyone creating music who wasn't either Freddie Mercury or Billy Joel was fighting a losing battle. Hmmm, I was in a mild motorcycle accident thanks to a boy who was unsuccessfully trying to impress me. I stole a cow for a few weeks, I wore a lot of rings, and I mastered and put to good use both the Jelly Fingers Curse and the Oppugno Curse. Anything else you'd like to know about that year?"

 _Yes, I want to hear the details of a fair few of those things. First off, you stole a cow?_

"I did indeed," she began. "He was a pet cow. He belonged to someone I did not particularly care for. So I stole him, kept him for a few weeks, and then I put him back once I decided that they'd been missing their cow long enough. And I managed to take it and put it back without being caught. And let me tell you, cows are not very fast moving animals, so there was plenty of time for me to be caught."

He sat there, on her wooden kitchen floors, deciding what to make of her story, when she interrupted, "hey, I never said it was a good idea. I just said it's something I did. When I was sixteen, mind you. I bet you did plenty of dumb stuff when you were sixteen too."

 _Sure, I did, but we're talking about right now. So, motorcycle accident?_ he asked. After all, he'd once had a motorcycle.

She nodded, "a guy I knew was trying to get me interested in him, I think. Took me out on his motorcycle, storm came out of nowhere, we hydroplaned and fell. I had a lot of bruises and messed up my elbow a little. It's not a big deal it just cracks when I do this." She demonstrated by flexing her elbow and straightening it out again, which caused a small popping sound.

 _I see. Those curses… what's the story there?_

"Dueling. Not advisable, but it happened. That's how I got that River Troll horn over on my bookshelf, I won it. I actually won quite a few of those items, come to think of it..."

Her eyes skimmed the shelf and he asked, _which ones?_

She exhaled, "that candle, that Ukranian Ironbelly scale… A bunch of stuff." She paused to finish the hot chocolate. "So I think I should pour this into a bowl for you…"

It was moments like these that pushed him further and further towards showing himself. His Animagus had always made him feel so free. After all, it was the way he snuck around the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade at school and how he had escaped his incarceration. But now… it just made him feel trapped. He was forced to be his second self around her, and it ate away at him.

Still, he answered, _that's probably a good idea. And who are those people you mentioned?_

A smile graced her face, "Freddie Mercury and Billy Joel? They're musicians. I'll put one on." And she did.

She had placed the bowl in front if him and prompted him, "it may be a bit hot but go ahead and try it whenever." She flipped through a few records, weighing then in her mind. She settled on Billy Joel's _The Stranger_.

She turned around to see a black dog beside an empty bowl. She laughed softly at the sight, "don't bother savoring it or anything."

 _I tried!_ he insisted. _It was too good. There's no way that's muggle made. It's too amazing for magic not to be involved._

She shrugged, "muggles make their own magic sometimes."

 _I'll take your word for it. I have a question for you, and I hope you don't find this too personal… But, you have a Foe-Glass?_

He was nervous to ask, but the foggy smoke seemed to be more concentrated. It almost seemed to be taking on a real form.

She turned to look at it. "I won that one as well."

 _In another duel?_

"No, playing poker actually. Muggle-born wizard. Real jerk…"

 _It looks like you have an enemy near,_ he pressed.

"It's a little broken. Always has been." Nevertheless, she noticed the smoke too.

She went over to the Glass and flicked it in the center. The sound of hollow glass reverberated and echoed. A moment later, it turned red and started to billow and surge smoke seemingly out of nowhere.

"See?" she asked. "Just worthless junk..." Still she couldn't draw her eyes away from the odd behavior of the Foe-Glass.

"Would you excuse me for a second," it was more of a statement than a question. She tore the needle off the record and was quickly at her window, peering towards the thicket from which they had come earlier.

She heard the pen scratching along the notebook on the counter behind her but she ignored it.

Finally she turned around to face her guest. She was calm but alert. "Sparky, I need you to do me a huge favor, and I'm sorry," she said grabbing his bowl from the ground and swiftly depositing it in her sink.

She looked at the notebook. It read: _Sunshine, is everything alright?_ Followed by: _Sunshine, what's going on?_

She opened her back door. "Everything is fine, I just need you to go in the back."

He looked at her but she had refused to make eye contact with him since the Foe-Glass began acting up. She looked… not nervous, as he would expect, just slightly agitated.

His head was reeling. He still didn't really know her, and wasn't sure how much he should trust her, but there they were. He could do what she asked, and wait in the garden, or he could take off despite the fact he had no idea where he was. He didn't know what was coming up the lane...

He took a breath and a leap of faith, and slipped out the door. He turned around once he made it down the steps. She finally met his eyes and gave him a quick smile, as if to say, _trust me._

 _I do,_ he thought, as he settled himself into the grass.

If he crooked his head to the side, he could just barely see her. He watched her close the notebook and set the pen, still uncapped, on top. Then she scooted out of his vision.


	14. o14

PLEASE read the author's note at the bottom!

* * *

 _Relax_ , he told himself. He forced himself to close his eyes, focusing on his breathing, even though the grass tickled his nose. Still, he kept his eyes firmly shut and instead strained his ears.

Through the open kitchen window he could hear shuffling. Shuffling of papers or feet or what… he wasn't sure. Next a door, he figured the front, creaked open. He could hear voices, but they were muffled. Too muffled to understand or identify. He couldn't tell if they were angry or happy, or even how many there were.

An instant later he heard something that sent him into a momentary panic. A boom! and the rumbling of the glass back door. It sounded as though someone had been slammed against it.

His eyes flew open expecting to find his Sunshine crumpled on the floor and in pain, with the dark figure whom the Foe-Glass foretold looming over her. But… that wasn't the case.

That wasn't the case at all. There was someone on the floor, but it certainly wasn't Sunshine. Just inside the door sat a small boy with curls that hinted towards an auburn color, scrunching his nose and glaring at the glass door while he rubbed his forehead.

"Kyle," an exasperated groan slipped out the window.

"What? The wood is slippery, Mum!" came the voice of the boy, Kyle.

A woman came into view, holding a tiny girl on her hip. She looked exhausted. Behind her came a boy, a little taller than the first, laughing along with Sunshine at Kyle's mishap.

"Come here, you," Sunshine leaned down and scooped Kyle up into her arms. He latched onto her without a thought and she brought him to sit on the kitchen table. She took a step back, pushed his curls up and peered at his forehead. Her thumb ran over a growing red bump, and she leaned in to kiss it. "I think you'll survive this one just fine," she addressed her nephew.

"No blood?" he asked.

"No blood," she promised.

Sated with her words, he wrapped his arms around her middle. She reciprocated, holding him tightly and patting him on the back, but once it seemed he wasn't going to let go, she said, "Kyle, I've got to go get something for your brother."

"Take me with you!" he provided the easy solution for any four-year-old.

"Alright but you've got to hold on to me because I need my arms. Deal?"

"Deal." And with that she easily swung him up onto her back, his arms and legs wrapped around her tightly, and they moved into the kitchen. It looked so natural to them, as if he was her second skin. "Thanks, Auntie Kiki."

 _Kiki_. He felt uneasy. _Her name is Kiki._ He felt as though he had cheated _. She didn't tell me her name, her nephew did_. Feeling uncomfortable, but also curious, he got up and edged close to the door.

"I see you've made good use of the coasters I got you," sarcastically commented the other woman, as she motioned to the same table Sparky had noticed was covered with ring shaped stains from many drinks over time. He could only assume that this was Sunshine's sister, Rosaleen. Sunshine, with Kyle on her back, emerged back towards the living room holding a box.

"I'm glad you noticed," Sunshine replied, ignoring her sister's obvious annoyance. "I figure there's no reason to use coasters on a table this obviously well-used. So I need Owen to paint it. Then I'll use the coasters."

"He's not aloud to practice his artwork on the furniture," Sunshine's sister informed her.

"Not on your furniture, sure, but mine is different," she explained as Kyle slid off her back, presumably tired of hanging on for dear life while she rummaged through her cabinets for painting supplies.

The sisters carried on arguing while the eldest boy, Owen, stood between them, head turning back and forth to follow the discussion. Meanwhile, Rosaleen had set the girl, whom one could only assume was little Rosalie, on the floor as well.

The canine lurking in the backyard was so transfixed on the ongoing exchange between the sisters that he failed to notice the two younger children. Kyle, with his sister close behind, had once again toddled over to the back door.

"There's a dog outside!" Kyle alerted everyone, including the dog himself. It was at this that the canine froze again.

He was now painfully aware that his edging towards the family had made sure that he was totally unobscured to them. _Shoot! Sunshine- or, Kiki, I guess- asked me to stay outside. Out of sight. I shouldn't even be here…_

Rosaleen's head whipped towards the garden when she heard her son's voice, but Sunshine was the one who spoke, "oh, is he out there again?" She sounded amused, almost curious. She didn't sound nervous or concerned like he was.

"There's a stray that's started coming around once in awhile," she somewhat falsely explained to her sister.

Kyle reached up towards the handle, presumably to go out and pet what he saw as a big fluffy puppy, but his mother ripped his hand away. "That dog will take a bite out of you as soon as you open the door," she warned him.

 _That's unfair, she doesn't know me. ...although I suppose I am slightly intimidating…_ he thought.

"Oh, please," Sunshine began, "he's harmless." She wrenched open the door and slowly descended the few steps to the ground. "Come here, boy," she encouraged him as though he were a real dog.

He was beginning to understand the predicament, and acted accordingly. He sat and waged his tail, playing dumb almost as she called him a few more times. Then he happily got up and bounded a few strides over to her, sat down and let her stroke him under the chin.

Her back to the house, she spoke quietly, " I'm sorry about them, she just shows up sometimes. Do you mind hanging out an hour or two? Then I'll Apparate you back to the pond?"

He tapped her arm once with his paw, _yes_.

"Thank you for being flexible. I'll make it up to you," she explained.

He reached out and licked her cheek, trying to say _, that's quite alright._

"And I know what you're thinking, but no, you haven't figured my name out. Owen had trouble saying my name when he was very young. Kiki was easier, and it just stuck for the kids. Oh, and sorry if the kids refuse to leave you alone, but Rosie won't let them have a dog and they're dying for one," she rushed to explain. Then she turned to the house, "see? I promise he's safe."

Rosaleen eyed him suspiciously, but after a moment of taking in his tail-wagging and her sister's smiling face, she opened the door to let her children flood out. And they did. Kyle was quickly at his aunt's side, letting the dog sniff his hand while his sister wobbled along behind him, and Owen strode out alongside his mother.

They gathered around, all the children petting the dog, Rosalie giggling at his lively tail-wagging. Their mother stood by, hand resting on her pregnant belly, watching protectively but her demeanor slowly softening.

Sunshine pulled her hand away and addressed her sister, "you should sit down. You look like you've not gotten much rest lately."

"Don't mind if I do," she said, lowering herself onto a bench of dark cherry wood. Sunshine disappeared into the house, and her Animagus companion set to work with the pen even from outside the house.

 _Why did the Foe-Glass alert you to your own sister arriving? She seems a little uptight maybe but not quite an enemy..._

She read her friend's latest message and returned to the garden, a pillow in hand. She strode over to her sister and instructed her, "lean forward." Rosaleen obliged and Sunshine slipped the pillow behind the pregnant woman's back. "Your back always hurts when you're this far along," she offered.

Rosaleen looked surprised that she knew that. "Yes, it does. Thank you, this helps."

"See, I'm not the twelve-year-old kid you always seem to remember me as," the woman said as she watched her nephews goof around with Sparky. Little Rosalie had climbed her way back into her mother's lap.

"I don't think of you like that."

This opposition was ignored. Instead Sunshine answered with a gesture towards her niece, "she never leaves your side."

"Yeah, she likes being with her mum."

"She shouldn't still be that attached at this age. She should be exploring her surroundings, wanting to learn to do things on her own. ...that's not good."

Even though the boys were keeping Sparky actively engaged, his ears were trained on this conversation. Rosaleen was taken aback and slightly offended.

"You're not a mother. You don't know anything about this," she spat angrily.

Sunshine didn't seem fazed by her sister's outburst. Instead she calmly explained, "I know that in a few months you're going to have your hands full with a newborn, and you won't be able to give her this much attention. She needs to start getting used to that. And I know that you're exhausted and you need and deserve some peace and quiet."

Rosaleen didn't meet her gaze but kept her eyes on her sons. Sunshine took this opportunity to lift her niece away from her perch on her mother's lap. "Rosalie," she started in a high pitched voice, "don't you think Mummy should go take a nap?"

Rosalie giggled in response. Her mom did not.

"Your kids need you to get your rest. Go sleep, Rosie. Just for an hour."

Rosaleen slowly stood to leave, supporting herself and her protruding stomach. When she was upright with her balance intact, she spoke, "Rosalie bonded with me from the start. The boys didn't so much… I don't have to tell you, you practically raised Owen in the beginning. And Kyle is glued to your side when you're around."

"Rosie," Sunshine began softly, "when Owen was born, you had just lost your mother, and she was your best friend. You were having a rough time, but that's what sisters are there for." She paused before adding with a smile, "and Kyle seems to have passed me over for a dog now, but he is exactly as I was as a kid."

"Tell me about it, I swear he gives me a daily heart attack," Rosie chuckled.

"That's exactly what I did to Mom," Sunshine conceded, bouncing her niece gently on her knee. "Go lie down and rest a while. I'll get the kids some lunch."

Rosaleen turned and walked back into the house. Pausing with her hand on the door's handle to softly say, "thanks, sis."

Sunshine didn't respond, just smiled down on her niece as Rosaleen slipped into the house. Not a moment later, she opened the door enough to suck her head out and announce, "when I come back though, we're talking about Jason. I think you should give him a second chance."

Sunshine's head slumped in annoyance. She answered, "we've talked that to death, Rosie, and no," but Rosaleen was already in the house again.

Sunshine looked up farther into the garden to see her nephews chasing Sparky amidst the plants. Their smiles, even Sparky's, were evident from far away, and the laughter that glided along the breeze back to her served as confirmation of the fun being had.

Settling little Rosalie on her hip, she stood to watch the game of chase. She watched them with a smile upon her face as they slowed from fatigue, and eventually watched Sparky let the boys win and catch him. He responded by flopping down in the grass and panting wildly, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

She turned towards the house and called over her shoulder, "come in and cool off, boys! And bring the dog too, he looks exhausted."

As the kids came scrambling up to the door she called out, "and leave your shoes outside! I do not want mud all through my house."

"What about Towser?" Owen asked, kicking his shoes off and entering the kitchen.

"Towser?" Sunshine questioned.

"Yeah, that's what we're calling him since he doesn't have a name, does he?" Owen inquired.

She looked at the dog waiting patiently outside, "if he does, he's not telling me."

The pen scratched along the notebook behind her. "I'll grab a rag for Towser's paws," she stated.

As she stood at the sink, dowsing a rag in cool water as she leaned over casually to read what had been written. _Very funny, Sunshine. And there's really no need to wipe my paws, I'll just stay outside._

Setting the notebook and pen beside her, she sat down on her back steps, wet rag in hand and began to speak quietly. "That's nonsense, of course you're coming inside. Now give me your hand."

He obliged after a moment of hesitation.

"Good. And to answer your earlier question, most people evoke a reaction from my Foe-Glass. I think it just gets that intense before she arrives because she always ruins the fun," she joked. "Sorry if the boys ran you ragged."

 _Not at all_ , the pen scribed. _It was fun. You're right, they're great kids._

"Thanks," she said as she switched to his back feet.

 _Could I ask you a question?_

"Ask whatever you'd like. I don't promise to answer it necessarily," she said. As she finished wiping his last paw, a loud crash was heard from inside.

"Auntie Kiki!" two harmonious yells came from within the house.

She quickly made her way up the steps and through the door, Sparky slipping in after her. They were greeted by the sight of the boys standing in the center of the kitchen, surrounded by a floor covered in liquid and broken glass, their sister looking on in confusion and interest.

Then the boys began speaking at once, each trying to pass the blame off.

"He dropped it!"

"No, I didn't! You knocked it out of my hand!"

She sighed, "boys." But her words were drowned out by the arguing.

Rosalie began wandering over towards her brothers, but Sparky quickly made his way in front of her to stop her from stepping on broken glass. She welcomed the distraction and reached out to pet his ear.

"What? I didn't even touch it!"

"Yes, you did!"

"Boys!" Sunshine's voice came again, and the boys stopped to look at her. "I don't care who dropped it. It was an accident. Just don't move."

She lifted her wand from the counter and quickly righted the wrong the boys had mistakenly done, sending the shattered pieces back into the shape of the pitcher they had been a part of moments earlier, and the liquid that had coated the floor settled back inside.

"Now, would you guys like some lemonade?" she asked, nodding towards said pitcher.

"Yes, please," came their voices.

She pulled out cups for each of the kids and spoke, "do you know what you're going to paint for me, Owen?"

"I think so," he answered as she handed him a cup of lemonade with a straw.

"Well what is it then?" she asked handing Kyle another cup and straw.

"You'll see!" he said as he walked away to plan out his artwork.

Kyle had climbed up onto the couch and was calling the dog over, "Towser! Come here, boy!" Then to his aunt he asked, "can he come up on the couch, Auntie Kiki?"

"If you can coax him up there, sure."

She heard the pen scribbling along again, and she glanced down at it to read, _no, I don't want to get your couch dirty._

"How do you figure you'd do that?" she asked under her breath.

 _I may be dry now, but just a short time ago I was sitting in the rain. I'm sure I still smell like wet dog._

"You don't," she assured him.

 _Still…_

Kyle was still trying to get him to jump up on the couch. "Kyle, he might not want to. And he's probably thirsty, let's get him some water."

She filled a wide bowl halfway with water, and handed it to Kyle, who was by her side again. "Careful, now," she guided as he set the bowl on the floor, trying not to spill.

Sparky made short work of it, and Kyle resumed his attempts to get the dog onto the couch. Sparky instead laid on the floor near the couch. Kyle seemed momentarily disappointed, but plopped down with the dog and pet him as he downed his lemonade.

By the time she put the lemonade away, gathered up the notebook, and made her way towards the living room, the youngest child was cuddled just under the dog's chin, her cup discarded and her eyes heavy with sleep. Kyle was awake but certainly calmer than before, sitting beside the duo, mercilessly but gently petting the dog.

She peaked over at Owen, who was already hard at work with his paints on the table.

"You can't look until it's finished, Auntie!" he exclaimed while he did his best to shield his masterpiece from her inquisitive gaze.

"Alright, alright," she spoke with her hands up in surrender. "I won't intrude on your process. I'll sit on the other couch."

"Auntie, will you tell us a story?" Kyle asked as he climbed up onto the couch.

"Surely," she offered as Kyle curled into her side. "What kind of story?"

"Tell us about the volcano," Kyle requested.

"Again? Bliley, I've told you that one so many times you could probably tell it better than me."

"Please?" he requested with a yawn.

She glanced to her side to see what had been written, _go on. I'd like to hear it too._

"Alright then," she began. "So, as you know, when your mom and I were young, your mom lived with your grandma, and I lived with your grandpa."

"Yeah," Owen offered from across the room. Kyle concurred with a sleepy nod. Sparky blinked in agreement so as to not disturb Rosalie who was fast asleep.

"Well, when I was sixteen," she paused, realizing she hasn't put this particular instance on the list of 'things that happened her sixteenth year' that she had given Sparky just a short time ago.

She continued, "we spent some time in Iceland. Your grandfather had some rather dry business to attend to in Reykjavik, and I did not wish to go, so he arranged for me to stay with some friends while he was away.

"The family I was to stay with had a few children nearly my age, and one day, we decided to gather some things, and go on an adventure. We left at sunset-"

"You didn't say who or why or where," Kyle complained with his eyes closed.

"Well I thought I'd get to the important part before you fall asleep on me," she replied with a chuckle.

"I'm not sleepy," he insisted, though he seemed too exhausted to open his eyes.

She conceded to his request. "There was a girl just older than me named Embla, and twin boys just younger than myself, named Bjorn and Ulf.

"This was not my first time visiting Iceland. Last time I was there, I heard a tale. It was of a place called Krafla. Krafla is a volcano, but it's more than that. It is a place that attracts all sorts of magic; witches, wizards, creatures. It is said to be home to a very peculiar type of mountain troll; it supposedly is surrounded by fields of rare potion ingredients; because it's so far north, you can see the stars extremely clearly which makes it desirable to those seeking a reliable place for Divination… It's quite the magical place.

"So Embla, Bjorn, Ulf and I packed up some supplies, and we left one evening. We brought brooms, but not quality ones. They were old and badly taken care of so they had a habit of making a sort of ragged whistling noise, and because of the many muggle towns on the way to Krafla, we walked most of the way.

"We passed the time swapping stories, telling jokes, but mostly we talked about what might be waiting for us at Krafla. We dreamed together of how great our adventure was sure to be.

"After some time, it came into view. Krafla," she said with a smile on her face. "We had made it. We were there."

Upon this recollection, she ceased speaking. For a moment, she was back in her glory days, running wild and free, exploring, laughing… causing chaos here and there, both intentionally and accidentally. This story was no exception.

"Go on, Auntie, get to the good part," Owen encouraged, never taking his eyes off his painting. Kyle didn't echo his brother's urging, as it seemed he had fallen asleep curled into the comfort of his aunt's loving arms.

"Right," she continued, "so we spent a good while looking around, seeing what there was to see, or trying to anyways, but we only found so much. We saw many magical plants and herbs, but not many magical creatures.

"The area was said to be nearly overrun with all sorts of different pixies and doxys and nymphs… But there were absolutely none to be found. We thought we saw a bowtruckle, but it quickly disappeared.

"So we kept exploring, trying to find something of interest, but it was a futile effort. Every creature seemed to have hidden itself away or vacated the area…" She paused and looked directly at Sparky, the only occupant of the house who had not yet heard this story. "And then suddenly, we knew why."

Acutely aware that the dog had his attention trained on her every word, she didn't hold her audience in suspense any longer, and instead continued, "all of the sudden everything happened at once. The only warning we had was a tiny bit of vibration under our feet. We didn't realise it until much later, but the ground seemed to be alive.

"We had completely forgotten, or at least I had forgotten, that Krafla was not just a mountain, but a volcano. But that quickly became very clear.

"It felt as though the earth beneath us was growling, and suddenly it started spewing lava. A steady river of lava was tearing its way across the terrain, down the mountainside, and directly towards us."

Sparky was certainly on the edge of his seat. Even though Sunshine was sitting before him and it was clear in the end of the story she would be okay (even if she ended up with a scar or two), he couldn't help but worry about her. Somehow in these few short weeks, he had come to care for her and her well-being above most other things in his life.

"Instinct just kicked in as it does," she continued, "and we sprinted to the tree where we had left our brooms. Bjorn and Ulf were the first in the air, and they sped away rather quickly, but Embla was a different story altogether. She lacked the confidence needed to properly fly, especially considering the river of lava, which was not helping her nervousness.

"I took to the air but she couldn't get more than a few lengths off the ground without toppling back down. The lava was flowing closer and closer all the while, so I flew down, pulled her onto the back of my broom and I began flying as fast as I could on a rickety old broom carrying one person more than usual.

"Flying was not easy. There were clouds and clouds of ash, which could have been avoided somewhat if we were to fly lower, but then we would be too close to the lava. So we gave it our best shot.

"We made it away from danger in the end, but it was a very close call: the broom ended up quite singed and we were covered in ash from head to toe, but we arrived back to their home in one piece."

"'And then you were so exhausted, you slept for days,'" Owen offered, "that's how you always finish the story."

She smiled at her nephew from across the room while she patted the head of her other nephew and repeated, "and then we were so exhausted, we slept for days."

She read as the pen scratched out beside her, _you actually outran a volcano._

She looked up from the paper and into the dog's eyes and nodded. Meanwhile, Rosalie, who was still fast asleep curled up under his chin, stirred in her sleep. She shifted and stretched and Sparky tried to turn to keep the little girl comfortable. Even still, somehow in the shuffle Rosalie managed to lift her fist, and punch him directly in the nose.

Sunshine couldn't help but chuckle at Sparky's shocked face after what had just occurred. She quickly stood, careful to gently lie Kyle down on the couch in the process, and stepped towards the duo on the floor.

She heard the pen quickly scrawling something but she leaned down to scoop the sleeping girl into her arms and carefully deposited her onto the couch as well. She scooped up the notebook as she asked, "alright Owen, may I see my table yet?"

"Nearly," he replied, opening a white paint.

"I'll make some lunch while you finish up," she said and waved Sparky along towards the kitchen.

When they arrived there she read what her friend had written: _you don't have to move her. I don't want to wake her._

She smiled and replied very quietly, "that's very sweet but once she's asleep, she tends to be very asleep."

He nodded and she continued, "I am terribly sorry about your nose, can I do anything to help? Does it hurt?"

 _Oh no it's fine. Your niece is adorable but she needs to work on her uppercut,_ he joked.

She smiled and began pulling out ingredients and dishes to prepare lunch. He just backed out of her way, laid down, and watched her work.

Her cooking was an odd mix of precision and shooting from the hip, but it seemed to suit her. No matter what she did in the kitchen, she did it with grace. She was exactly in her element, and to Sparky, it was a thing of beauty.

Everything else seemed to fade away when they were together, and consequently, time flew. Before either of them realized it, Rosaleen had awoken to join them and they sat down to lunch.

Rosaleen wasted no time in getting to her preferred topic of conversation with her sister: her love life. And Sparky was quite keen to hear about it as well.

"So," Rosaleen began, exhibiting some level of tact. Of course she soon threw all caution to the wind and blatantly asked, "what is going on between you and Jason? I thought you quite liked each other."

His heart couldn't help but falter at the idea of his Sunshine keeping company with another man. Of course he didn't really have any say in the matter… She certainly didn't belong to him in any way… After all they were just an odd sort of friends… But that didn't mean he had to like it, right?

"Rosie," she began, trying to exhibit more patience than she actually had when it came to her sister's obsession about her love life, "I've explained this already. What more do you want me to say?"

"Say you'll rethink things. We could double date: me and John, you and Jason. He likes you," Rosaleen encouraged.

"He is neutral about me at best, and I am the same towards him. We went on a few dates; it wasn't a love connection," she explained.

Her sister huffed in response.

"Look, he's a nice man. I wish him all the best, I just don't wish it with me."

 _Well I can't quite be mad at that,_ he thought.

"But he's so fun," Rosaleen insisted.

At that, Sunshine looked genuinely confused. "He is not. He is astoundingly boring… He just doesn't work for me."

"Look, sis," Rosaleen persuaded, "remember when we were kids? And we used to dream about our weddings?"

"Not in the slightest," she countered. "Maybe I've hit my head one too many times, but I'm quite sure I was never that girl. I suppose I humored you from time to time..."

"Right, well, do you remember who I was convinced I was going to marry?"

"Prince Charming," she offered as though it was a no-brainer.

"Exactly. And I didn't marry him-"

"That's because he's not real. Pirates, however, are real."

"Hardly," Rosaleen contested. "How many pirates do you know?"

"A fair few," she responded with a hollowed look. Both Rosaleen and Sparky had trouble discerning just how serious she was.

Rosaleen did get best to ignore her and continued with her persuasions. "So I think you need to be realistic. After all there aren't really pirates these days so you may have to settle for a mere man."

"That's not entirely true," Sunshine said, her love for being right coming out. "John might not have royal blood, but he treats you like a princess. And if I ever marry, I'm not saying he has to be a pirate by occupation, but he does have to have the heart of a pirate… Adventurous, brave… But loyal. Pirates are not loyal..."

"You don't know any pirates."

"Don't I?" she challenged.

"Do you?" Rosaleen asked, her unbelief and confusion apparent.

She merely raised her eyebrows, eyes hinted towards a sated amusement, refusing to relinquish the truth, whichever way it may lean. Even to her sister she was a slight mystery.

Before anyone realized it, everyone was awake and filled with lunch (including Sparky, upon the boys' insistence that he was hungry). Rosaleen gathered herself and her kids to leave, which was easier said than done of course. The sisters combined forces to make sure that each of the kids left with two shoes.

Just as they were leaving, Rosaleen brought them back to their earlier conversation. "Adventurous, brave, loyal, huh?"

"As a base, at least," Sunshine offered with a shrug.

"You do realize you basically described a dog, right?"

Sparky's heart spent the rest of the day feeling as though it was skimming the clouds.

* * *

A/N: To all of you who have stuck it out this far, I thank you hundreds of times over. I know this is not the fastest moving story, but we are getting there. Very soon, (***SPOILER ALERT*** I think chapter sixteen...), Sparky and Sunshine will become Sirius and, well, I'm not giving her name away that easily. But, it is happening. But most importantly, thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, for every read, every follow, every favorite, every review, and every minute in any way spent on this story. It means so much to me to see that people out there are enjoying this :)


	15. o15

"Well what am I to do, Remus? I won't stop seeing her, I just won't." Sirius spat at his supposed friend.

"You must." Remus implored him. "Think about what you've just told me. Really think, Sirius."

Sirius sighed. Moments ago he had recounted his afternoon with Sunshine and her family. Unfortunately Remus hadn't been quite as thrilled with the experience as Sirius had.

"You let her invite you into her house, chased her nephews around the garden, and let her niece practically sleep in your arms. Sirius, you are not a bad man, but you are a convicted felon, and an escapee. Imagine what she would think if she found out she let a man like that into her home, and around her family," Remus begged his friend to consider the truth.

Sirius huffed and rolled his eyes, but his friend's thoughts struck something in him.

* * *

"Son of a squib," she muttered under her breath while pulling a burnt mess out of the oven.

It was his fault, of course. It always was lately. Over the past few weeks, every time her sides were splitting in laughter, it was his fault. Every time she wondered the night away, resulting in no sleep for the next day, it was his fault. Every time she smiled until her cheeks were sore, or smiled in the middle of a mundane activity while recalling something he had said or done, it was his fault.

And now, she had burnt a chocolate souffle. Another one, actually, as the first had just recently been granted permanent residence in the bin. She plopped this one down on the counter to cool before having to deal with scraping it into the bin to join its kin. And this too, was all his fault.

She removed her oven mitts and added them to the mess that was her kitchen. She leaned with her palms wrapped around the edge of the counter to and closed her eyes.

Words swarmed on the backs of her eyelids. Two days, and they still hadn't vacated her mind.

* * *

"Sirius? Sirius!" Remus voice rang out.

Sirius sighed. He looked over at Buckbeak, who had opened one eye in annoyance of his rest being disturbed.

"There you are," Remus hovered in the doorway after searching for his friend for a few minutes. He found him lying on the dusty wooden floor of Buckbeak's room.

"Here I am," Sirius choked out, his dry throat stumbling through the sentence.

He didn't look to be in good shape. "H- How've you been?" Remus asked with an edge of nervousness to his voice.

Sirius stared at the ceiling. He still hadn't met his friend's eyeline.

"It's been three days since I've seen you..." Remus continued.

"Is that really all? Feels like weeks..." Sirius inquired. His tone matched the dryness of his throat.

"Have you been lying here all that time?" Remus worried.

"Don't be daft. I've gotten up to take a leak," Sirius offered.

That didn't seem to placate the man in the doorway. "And to have a wash?"

"Who would I need to wash for? I'm not seeing anyone any longer," Sirius said bitterly.

"So you told her."

He rolled onto his stomach and faced away from his friend. This was hard enough without seeing the pity he was sure coated Remus' face. "I left a note. I couldn't face her..."

Remus nodded even though Sirius couldn't see him.

"Have you eaten?" Remus asked.

Sirius pointed to a plate nearby. It had the remnants of a sandwich and an apple core. It looked to be at least a day old. Half a glass of water stood next to it.

"That's all?"

"Food just reminds me of her," Sirius confessed, "everything does..."

"You need to eat," Remus stated to his broken-hearted friend.

"I'm not getting up."

"Then I'll bring you something," Remus insisted.

Sirius shrugged, "do what you want."

Remus returned shortly with a warmed portion of the cottage pie Molly had sent with him, a cup of tea, and a small piece of chocolate.

"Sit up," Remus instructed softly.

Sirius rolled over again and slowly inched himself up into a seated position, grimacing all the way. Lying on a wooden floor for three days does awful things to your back.

He dragged himself to the wall a few feet away to lean against it and exhaled in a moment of physical relief. His bones welcomed a change in position.

Remus sat beside him, handed him the plate, and placed the tea on the floor in front of him. "Have the chocolate first," he suggested.

"Of course I'm going to have the chocolate first," Sirius stated plainly. He may be grown, but he was still a kid at heart.

The chocolate seemed almost tasteless. He made his way numbly through the cottage pie, chewing and swallowing mechanically. He finally went to wash it down with the tea, but as he leaned forward to pick it up, a hiss escaped his throat and a scowl replaced his blank stare.

A hand shot to his back, clearly in pain. He tried again, moving slowly and stretching his arm as far as he could.

As his hand wrapped around the handle, Remus asked, "why are you lying on the floor? You've got to be as stiff as I am after a full moon."

Between sips he offered a one word explanation, "distraction."

"'Distraction?'" Remus repeated. "How?"

"If I'm lying on the floor, thinking about how much my back hurts, I don't have to be thinking about how much she must hate me right now."

"I don't understand."

Maybe there wasn't enough food in his system for him to hide behind his usual barrage of jokes and sarcasm, but in an uncharacteristic moment of transparency, Sirius offered an explanation that broke Remus' heart.

"When I was in prison, all I did was think about how I let James and Lily down, how I failed Harry, how I hated Peter… But I found that if I laid on the floor until my back was sore or refused to use my blanket and shivered, I had no choice but to have my discomfort occupy my mind instead. It gave me slight emotional relief, just for a few moments, to have some time not hating myself."

He was reverting to his prison habits. Prison. Sirius was in emotional prison.

* * *

Four days. She was now four days "Post Sparky," as she had begun to call it in her head.

In an attempt to sooth herself and hopefully bring herself back to a state of normalcy, she had drawn herself a bubble bath.

But that was hours ago. The bubbles had each popped in turn, the water had long since turned frigid, and her thoughts were still consumed by confusion over the cryptic note left for her on the beech tree.

Her hands were clasped behind her head, her ears nestled just below the water's surface. The water obstructed her hearing, making everything muffled. She had hoped that somehow having her head beneath the water would drown her turbulent thoughts, but they had taken up roots quickly, and nothing was about to move them.

She lifted her legs from their hooked position over the edge, pulled them into the tub and drew them to her chest as she sat up. She shivered. Her arms coiled together and rested upon her knees, her head laid sideways on top of them.

* * *

She shivered again as she closed her eyes. If she couldn't drown her thoughts, maybe she could freeze them out.

"Remus!" a jolly voice sauntered its way out the window and to his ears.

The door was pulled open just as he was encroaching on its territory. Molly greeted him with a welcoming hug, then looked behind him for a dog.

There wasn't one.

She turned, puzzled, towards Remus, "where is he?"

Remus rubbed the back of his neck, "he wouldn't come."

Molly closed the door. "What? Why not?"

Her questions didn't beg an answer. "It's been five days..." She'd hoped that would be enough time.

"He's… not in good shape, Molly. He won't eat, he won't wash… He's lying on the floor, all but grieving."

Her hand covered her heart as her face fell. As much as she hated when he called her 'angel,' the way he acted more juvenile than her sons at times, and how reckless he was, she did care about him, especially for Harry's sake.

"Well what are we to do?"

The question hung in the air as they sat down to dinner.

They took turns opening their mouths to speak, but closing them before any sound could escape. No one knew what to think. No one knew what to say. No one knew what to do.

What could they do?

Sirius' empty chair seemed to scream in its silence. It stared each of them down,daring them to find a viable solution to the impossibility in front of them.

In the end it was Arthur who took a stab at it. "I think he needs to tell her."

"Sorry?" Remus choked out.

"Absolutely not," Molly replied, "that would end horribly."

"Maybe so," he explained softly to his wife, "but it's the only way anything is going to change, for better or for worse."

"He needs closure," Remus offered in agreement.

"Well he'll have to find it some other way," Molly insisted. "He will not tell her and risk her alerting the ministry and being sent back to Azkaban. He shouldn't be there, he's innocent."

Molly sighed, unsure of how to resolve the situation. "Harry shouldn't have to see his godfather locked up again. Merlin knows that boy has dealt with enough thus far."

"I don't think he would be caught, even if she alerted the ministry," Arthur offered. "Think about it. Odds are, yes, he tells her and she runs away in fright. Who wouldn't? Then he runs away as a dog back to Grimmauld Place, stays completely hidden for a while, with no slip ups. She alerts the ministry, but with no proof, she's treated as the 'boy who cried wolf.'

"The worst that happens is the ministry pays a little closer attention to the hunt in London, and Sirius hates her for running. But he'll know that at least."

Remus and Molly just sat, silently processing Arthur's proposal.

When they didn't respond for quite some time, Arthur clarified, "the 'boy who cried wolf' is a muggle tale that teaches children not to lie."

They both nodded politely.

"Maybe… It's not the worst idea in the world," Remus agreed.

Molly began, "but Harry-"

She was cut off by her husband, "Sirius is more than just Harry's godfather. He's a person just like anyone else, and he needs this."

* * *

Her feet found her footing as though it was second nature. She hadn't opened her eyes. She was already regretting this.

 _You loved this place long before he appeared. Don't let him ruin this for you, she told herself._

It was true. She had loved this place from the time she was six years old. She had plenty of memories here that didn't involve him…

Still, as soon as she opened her eyes, she was flooded with uneasiness. The tree they had taken shelter under in the rain, that one twisted root he always seem to lose his balance over, the portion of the bank that had nearly given way and tossed them into the pond while they were watching the Flipper Snitch, the grass that always made him sneeze, the sunshine… He had woven himself into every aspect of this place, leaving no inch untouched by his memory.

Nearly a fortnight unable to draw her mind away from this place, now it made her skin crawl.

She slumped to the ground, defeated- by this place, by him…

She had an inkling to turn and look at the beech tree. _Don't,_ she told herself.

The tree taunted her in the breeze, daring her to look back and become flooded once again with thoughts of him. Not that those thoughts ever really seemed to leave her lately…

Still she was grappling with twisting around. In the end she did.

She took in its huge branches, its seemingly infinite leaves, its profoundly grooved trunk… Upon which sat an envelope.

 _That can't be,_ she thought. _I got rid of that._

In fact she had set it alright, letting the ashes fall into the pond, knowing full well that of she didn't, she'd read it a hundred times over, maiming her mind. It didn't matter. She'd only read it twice, but the words were ingrained in her mind. Just three sentences…

 _Sunshine,_

 _This is goodbye._

 _I'm sorry I can't explain._

 _I promise this is for the best._

 _Sparky_

Against her better judgement and fueled by her unending curiosity, she strode over. She plucked it off the bark and opened it, expecting to see those same three sentences.

She didn't. Instead it read:

 _Noon._

 _I won't blame you if you don't come. I wouldn't want to either._

She exhaled, tapping the card against her thumbnail. Then she pulled out a pen and flipped it over.

* * *

Chiming brought him out of his stupor. _...eight, nine, ten, eleven,_ he counted.

He slowly rolled over and rose up off the ground. Everything ached. It would take him a good while to get to the pond.

He stumbled towards the bathroom on numb legs. He ran the faucet and held his hands under the stream, slowly letting life seep back into his stretched skin. As he did so he glanced at his far from presentable reflection. Matted, greasy hair, bags under his eyes, and hunched shoulders all contributed to his defeated demeanor.

A week now his note had been occupying the beech tree, and still there had been no sign that she planned to fulfill his request. There wasn't even a guarantee that she had seen it.

But it was all he had to hold on to. The pond was their only concrete connection… He didn't know her name, where she lived, where she worked, who her friends were...

So he was clinging desperately to hope. But after a week of yielding no fruit from his dire efforts, he was close to giving up.

He dragged his wet hands over his face but made no other attempt to make himself suitable to meet her face to face. He was sure he was bound to be alone again today. Even though it had been there a week, he was quite certain she hadn't even read his second note. There was no sign it had been touched.

Slouching all the while, he made his way through the house and to his front door, took a deep breath, and set out.

* * *

He collapsed to the ground. The grass grazed his nostrils as he panted uncontrollably. It hadn't taken him as long as he thought it would. Running did little to ease his mind, but it did more than anything else.

He laid there for a while, trying to cool down, trying not to sneeze, trying not to get his hopes up… None of them went completely as planned.

Eventually he looked up to the tree expecting to find his note still untouched.

He blinked.

 _That's not how I left it._

He certainly hadn't written his name on the envelope, and he only had one guess who had.

Before he even realized it, he had transfigured and was standing with his hand outstretched. He held it there for a moment, envelope just out of reach of his fingertips. He pulled his hand away slightly.

In this moment, there was overwhelming hope flowing through his veins. It quickly turned to terror. Millions of things could await him in that note, some of them good but most of them bad.

This might be the last moment before the end, and to him that was clearer than anything he'd ever known. He was on the cusp of it all.

He exhaled and snatched the card off the trunk. He opened it, and although he wasn't sure he should, he smiled.

It simply read, _7pm._

* * *

She checked her watch. It was a nervous habit of hers. She tapped her foot. Another nervous habit of hers.

She knew she was early. It was driving her crazy, waiting around, but she knew she would only be going crazier if she hadn't come early. Lately she had no idea what was going on… With her love life, with her sister, with the man in the white cottage, with the restaurant, and least of all with him. She needed the upper hand for once.

After several more minutes of leaning against the tree, tapping her foot, checking her watch, and wringing her hands, she opened her eyes after a slow blink to behold a black dog, notebook in mouth. He was here. This was it, whatever "this" was about to be.

They didn't speak at first. Neither of them knew how to begin. The only way they had even acknowledged one another was immediate and so far unyielding eye contact.

In the end it was her. She broke the silence, but not the tension. That she multiplied tenfold; her confusion and frustration were showcased in her avowal.

The little patience she had dissolved, "well?"

He stepped closer, bringing his mouth towards her hand. She took the notebook from him, opened it, uncapped the pen and dropped it onto the page, all without breaking eye contact. Her jaw hadn't unclenched since he arrived.

 _Well what?_

She exhaled, trying to keep her composure. She understood nothing in her life lately and she was sick of it. "You tell me," she said, "you asked me here."

He didn't know how to start. He figured there was really no good way…

 _Alright,_ he wrote out, _bear with me, because I think I have a lot to say and I'm not quite sure how to._

"Fine," she responded.

He sighed. She was not about to make this easy for him.

 _First off, I just wanted to apologize… None of this is your fault and-_

"I know it's not my fault," she interrupted. "All I ever did was try to befriend the lonely man in the forest, feed him, and invite him out of the pouring rain and into my house."

 _Ouch,_ he thought, but she wasn't wrong. He knew that.

"So whatever the issue is, it's clearly your issue," she continued.

 _Right. Anyways, I shouldn't have done it that way. I should've explained a little or at least given you the opportunity to pose a question-_

"Clearly," she said bitterly.

Now he was annoyed. Sure, he could've handled the situation better two weeks ago, but the way she was handling this situation, here and now, was juvenile as well. It was irritating him.

After a long, deciding moment, he asked, _what is it?_

She sighed, "what's what?" She sounded exhausted.

 _Something's bothering you. And more than just this. You're awfully upset._

Her face fell, and with it her scowl. Her shoulders slumped and she sat herself down in a heap at the base of the tree.

"I'm sorry." It was tough to bring herself to say, but she did. "There are about a hundred things going on for me right now, and I'm the last to know everything lately… And you know how I get about being right and winning… That sort of extends to this. I'll stop being so rude. Or I'll try anyways."

The vulnerability and honesty she exhibited was difficult on her part and appreciated on his.

He took a breath and let it out as he wrote, _you're right. You've been nothing but kind to me. That is why this is so difficult._

Frustration swelled in her chest again. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it. As angry as she was, she was trying. She wanted to know what he had to say. She needed to hear him out.

She had to concentrate wholeheartedly to do it but she held her tongue, so he continued, _the truth is I am a lot more trouble than you should have to deal with. You deserve a better friend. So I thought I'd just spare you the bother and fall back out of your life, but… the lack of closure has been killing me._

"Me too," she offered, not being able to stay quiet any longer.

There was a pause. Neither of them knew how to go on properly, but he tried his hand at it anyways, heart beating straight out of his chest and into the chasm of uncertainty between them.

 _I know that you'll leave straight away when you know who I am, and I've made my peace with that as much as I'm capable of… but I still need the closure of knowing. It will be awful, but I need to see you walk away so I can close the book on this._

She broke into the tiniest smile at the irony of reading his last few words in an actual book, but quickly refocused.

"Why would I leave?"

 _Sunshine… it's just the way it is. But you deserve to know who I am. If you'd like to._

She blinked, slow and controlled, a huge contrast to how fast and chaotic her mind was moving. Did she want to know? Her instinct was yes, of course, but it wasn't her only thought. _Maybe it would be better to not know…_ she thought. _Sure it'll drive me mad for a bit, but that will fade, right?_

She knew she was lying to herself. The past two weeks had been anything but productive with him invading her every thought. She couldn't keep on this way. _It's better to know, right? Ignorance is only a fool's bliss…_

"Yeah, I… I need to know."

 _You're sure._ It wasn't quite a question, but it wasn't a sure statement either. It lived somewhere in the ambivalence of the rapidly approaching moment of truth.

She exhaled. "My mother always said my curiosity would be my downfall… So even if this is about to end badly, I need to know."

He was reeling. Of all the things he had done in his life, becoming an Animagus, befriending a werewolf and keeping him company during his transformations, fighting against Voldemort, pranking professors, getting himself blasted off his family tree, bewitching a motorcycle, escaping Azkaban… this was by far the most nerve wracking.

"So… how do we do this?" she fumbled her way through her thoughts. "I mean… should I just close my eyes like normal? ...but then you can let me know when to open them?"

The pen quivered in front of her, then spelled out, _I suppose so._

"Okay, so… are you ready then?"

 _Yes, but, Sunshine?_

"Yeah, Sparky?" she said appearing much more relaxed than she felt.

 _Just… please try not to hate me, alright?_

She answered simply by closing her eyes, and with them the notebook. If he wanted to say anything else, he'd have to do it in person.

He transformed as easily as she closed her eyes. He stood before her, unbeknownst to her.

She was hugging the notebook to her chest as though it was a shield between the Sparky she had gotten to know and the one she was about to have to confront.

He hadn't spoken. He knew it was all about to end and he wanted to savor the last moment he had of this, even if that moment was coated in terror, intertwined with uneasiness, and consumed by suspense.

Her nervousness was increasing by the second. "Are you still there?" she asked tentatively.

He hadn't realized the amount of time that had passed while he was relishing her face, uncontorted by horror it was bound to exhibit when her eyes opened. He was certain this was the last time he would see her somewhat calm.

He opened his mouth, but the only sound he could seem to make was that of clearing his throat.

Her eyelids threatened to spring upwards but she held them shut and waited for an invitation.

Finally, that invitation came. Well, as close to an invitation as he could muster. "I, um...," he stumbled, "I suppose… when you're ready."

She exhaled for a beat, and opened her eyes. She blinked… and again… and once more for good measure.

She took in his features: his handsome jawline, his broad shoulders, his straight nose, his somehow aristocratic brows, and his intense gaze. His expression was different than she was used to. He looked nervous, expectant… a far contradiction from his silent screams that had greeted her every time she entered her restaurant.

Months ago, her restaurant's windows had been plastered with his poster, and so she had unpurposely come to know it quite well. He looked far different from that depiction, but it was unmistakable. She knew exactly who stood before her.

She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Breathlessly, she spoke, "well, hello, Sirius Black."


	16. o16

An eternity at least, probably more. That's how much time he felt had passed since she opened her eyes. Her eyes glanced across his face, but besides that her face hadn't changed. Whatever she was thinking, she was hiding it well.

After a moment her eyebrows raised ever so slightly. You wouldn't have even noticed it had you not been fixated on observing any reaction she may have like he was.

If he thought his heart was beating quickly before, now he was sure he could take flight based on its speed. However he was equally as sure that the pit lodged in his stomach would hold him firmly rooted to the spot. He could barely handle the situation.

Then she spoke. Her words seemed to echo, bouncing off the trees, the water, the very air itself, reverberating and rattling him to the very core.

 _Well, hello, Sirius Black._

They were both concentrating on breathing, blinking, standing upright.

 _Well, hello, Sirius Black._

He words refused to fade into the hum of the forest.

He opened his mouth, but closed it almost immediately. She did the same. "I…" he spoke slowly, "...didn't expect you to still be standing here."

She only blinked.

"I thought you'd have taken one look and left."

Still, she only blinked. It was killing him. Her eyes had narrowed slightly into a discerning gaze, speculating and processing.

"Kyler," she mumbled quietly.

"Sorry?" he asked, taking a small step towards her in order to hear her properly.

"Kirwan," she spoke more clearly, "Kyler Kirwan."

He was still confused, but he waited for her clarify in her own time.

"That's my name. Kyler Kirwan." Her voice was becoming more even now. "I told you a while back that when I knew your name, you'd know mine, so… there it is."

Despite the enormity of the situation, Sirius felt a slight giddiness at gaining this small insight into who she was. Slight though it may be, he had been wondering for ages. And now he knew.

"Kyler Kirwan," he repeated gradually, letting each syllable slide past his lips. "It's a nice name."

She couldn't help but smirk at that conclusion, "yeah?" she asked, "well, I was named after a man."

His cheek twitched and a slight smile appeared on his face for a portion of a second. The silence from earlier rose back up and enveloped them like a veil.

"Sorry, I'm just… I'm trying to reconcile you with… well you."

Sirius nodded. As tense as waiting was, he reminded himself to be glad she hadn't come to her senses and run yet.

"You look different than your wanted poster," she offered.

"Well that was thirteen years ago… and not my most appealing portrait," he responded.

She chuckled, "I'll say. Although I have to admit, I am a fan of some of the adaptations."

"Adaptations?" he inquired.

She nodded, "the restaurant has about six or so on the windows. The one on the door is original but the others have been… edited by some frequent passersby. In one you have green hair, another you're being pelted by raining frogs, one breaks out into a very loud rendition of 'God Save the Queen' if you look at it too long."

Sirius chuckled, glad for the humor, but it didn't last. The situation was too big to be brushed off that lightly.

"Why are you still here?" he asked. He was bewildered that she had stayed this long.

Kyler shrugged. "I told you my curiosity would be my downfall… but until then…" she trailed off, "you're not bad company."

A strap of her knapsack slid off her shoulder and onto her arm. She took it off and set it on the ground. "Care to sit? I think there's some explaining for you to do."

"Sure," he agreed. He sat a respectable distance away from her as she rummaged through her knapsack.

She pulled out a small tin, which he came to realize had cookies inside.

He was once again baffled. "You brought food?"

"Habit," she shrugged as she took a cookie and held the tin out to him.

He took one but didn't eat it immediately, "Where to begin…" he wondered aloud.

"The beginning," she suggested, "the end, the middle, I don't much care, but do explain yourself."

He had been confused and shocked by her a number of times in the past, but this was altogether different. "Why aren't you frightened by me?"

Kyler looked at him and took a bite of her cookie. When she swallowed she spoke, "you've had every opportunity and then some to cause me harm and you've done just the opposite. I don't see why you would now. Clearly you're not interested in that."

"I'm not," he confirmed.

"Good," she responded rather obviously. She took another bite of her cookie as she waited for him to decide on a starting point.

Sirius didn't explain, but posed a question instead. "What do you know about me?"

She looked him in the eye and told him.

"You were sent to prison without trial after being accused of killing twelve innocent muggles in the pursuit of murdering a friend of yours. You were sentenced to life in Azkaban and became the first person to ever escape after residing there nearly twelve years, and have now been on the run for about a year," she spouted off the facts as though she was reading them. "I figured you would be somewhere much farther than London…"

He nodded. She was right. "I'm innocent," Sirius insisted.

"Aren't all convicts?" she asked.

"I really am."

She gave him a skeptical look, "well go on then."

And he did. He bounced around in the timeline a bit, as he was flustered by the situation, but after some backtracking, a bit of self-correcting, and quite a lot of meticulous explaining, they got there.

Kyler nodded all the while, allowing him to work his way through his story. When he finished that pesky silence descended once again upon the space between them. Though she wasn't sure she believed all of what he said, she understood it. Kyler just looked at him trying to think it all through.

He remembered the cookie in his hand and bit into it. It was quite pleasant.

Kyler pulled her eyes away and realized how dark it had gotten.

"It's getting late…" she stated.

He didn't respond. He wasn't certain she wouldn't come to see him again. She hadn't run in fear, but surely she had better company than a wanted man like himself.

"Tomorrow?" Kyler asked, standing up.

He mimicked her and got to his feet. "Sure," he answered hopefully.

"Same time?"

"Of course," he nodded.

She paused, but then offered, "could I apparate you back to… wherever in London? It's quite a ways away and late, too."

He shook his head, "I could use a run."

She nodded, "well, then…"

"Do I really sing 'God Save the Queen?" he had been wondering since she mentioned it.

"Oh, yeah. You're not half bad, actually." Kyler insisted.

He laughed at the thought of it, but the quickly descending sun stopped him from inquiring further.

"Well, goodnight," he offered.

She nodded, "goodnight."

She Disapparated on the spot and he was left alone.

"Kyler," he breathed. He knew her name. And she knew his. And she hadn't run… it felt like a dream.

 _CRACK!_

Sirius jumped slightly as Kyler appeared before him again.

"Good, you haven't left. I just wanted to say… I don't hate you."

He smiled as he nodded, "goodnight, Kyler."

"Goodnight… Sirius." And with that, she was gone again.

Sirius steadied himself on four furry legs, and trotted home, happiness filling him up with each stride.


	17. o17

Kyler had fallen asleep without much strain after a rather taxing day, both emotionally and physically, but waking up in the morning was just the opposite. Before her eyes were even fully open, it all came barreling back at her, flooding her mind.

 _...was that real?_ she thought as she rubbed her eyes.

 _Yes, that was real,_ she reminded herself. _That was really him. That was Sirius Black._

"Sparky is Sirius Black," she mumbled to herself. Even hearing it out loud, it sounded like a joke. She shook her head and the covers off her body and rose to greet the day.

Denial, confusion, bewilderment, alarm… she battled the truth through her shower and two cups of coffee but before she knew it, it had settled around her like an early morning fog. Only it wasn't a fog, opaque and pliant. It would not dissipate when the sun appeared overhead. It was a steel curtain, capable of withstanding most anything, including the fears and burning questions she thrust upon it. They all ricocheted back to her.

 _Why didn't I run?_ she posed the same question to herself that he had hours earlier.

Shock had accounted for much of it. The hardly believable surprise the night before had rendered her legs nearly useless. They had felt too heavy to walk, much less run. Even standing became difficult, which is why she had suggested they sit down. Sure, it would be hard to defend herself if the most notorious criminal alive tried to attack her, but it would also be difficult for him to attack her from a seated position. She had only hoped that in a possible moment of sheer terror, her adrenaline would take charge. But shock was not the only factor that kept her there.

Deep down she knew why, but it wasn't a good answer. She had told him it was for the sake of her curiosity, and that wasn't a lie. Her curiosity, her need to know and conquer every situation… it was unending. If she had been interested in figuring out the dog in the forest before, it was only multiplied by last night, and that wasn't good.

The whole truth, was complex. She had become bored. The tediousness of the restaurant, the complacency of her adult life, the rigidity of her routine… her pesky responsibilities. She had long since ached for the spontaneity and the ventures of her youth. All her life her surroundings, her peers, her activities, they were always changing, always stimulating, always new. She had scarcely stayed half a year in a place, but now she had settled. For four years she had been uncharacteristic of herself and taken up some semblance of roots. She was slowly fading, morphing into who she never wanted to be. She wanted something interesting in her life.

 _He is not just interesting. He is dangerous,_ Kyler heard her mother's voice in her head. Even from beyond the grave, her mother seemed to be watching out for her daughter's safety.

"Is he dangerous?" she wondered aloud.

The obvious answer was: yes, absolutely. Even a daring soul such as herself wasn't daft enough to discount that answer entirely. But… she felt as though she knew him, the man behind the wanted poster.

After all, he had kissed her cheek, massaged her pain away, held her hand, complemented and joked with her, shared with her the antics of his childhood… he had even placated her nephews with a game of chase, and laid on a wooden floor so her niece could sleep comfortably. All of that didn't exactly lead her towards the conclusion of danger.

Kyler closed her eyes, trying to remember every last detail of the previous night. She had been shocked by how different he looked. Not only was he older and more put together than his mugshot, but his demeanor was severely unexpected. She had to have seen that mugshot a thousand times, opening and closing the restaurant, and his anguish-filled face was burned into her eyes; she even felt she could hear his screams, though the poster never made a peep.

But meeting him, those screams were absent. His face was void of the agony to which she had grown accustomed. The irascible, ferocious Sirius Black that the public, both magical and muggle, had been warned about, was not the one she had met. Gone was the malice, and before her stood a man filled with terror and nervousness. He seemed… vulnerable.

Still, she she had to accept facts. Mass murderer of the innocent, convict, escapee, man on the run, menace… those couldn't be ignored.

To her, he was a walking contradiction who begged to be solved.

* * *

The man outside was beginning to regain both a normal breathing pattern and heartbeat. He rubbed the discomfort out of his neck, but when he swallowed he could still feel her wand threatening to blow him back to the mainland. "I didn't do anything," he grumbled as he pretended to pull some non-existent weeds. And he was right. She was the one with the issue.

"Working hard, Stan?" Minutes ago Kyler had provoked the man lying in the grass after noticing the increase in flowers along the front edge of the paint-peeling cottage. The flowers actually managed to soften the edges of the alabaster interruption of the stunning coastline, but still, there it stood as a testament to how one hapless detail can spoil something great.

Stanislav, who often found the first few hours of daylight a dreary hassle, had been lying upon the grass with a straw gardener's hat pulled over his face, which he removed slowly to behold the woman who had addressed him.

"Why are you here?" he had drawled.

Kyler hadn't stopped walking, "well it's certainly not to see you."

"He isn't up yet," he informed her as he scrambled to cut off her path to the front door.

"Step aside," she requested with much more passivity than she felt.

"You know the procedures. You must relinquish your wand before entering," he implored her.

And then it happened. Suddenly, somehow, her wand, which had been tucked away, was out in the open air, and in another fraction of a second she invaded his personal space, wand tip nearly closing off his airway.

He flinched and tried to escape her ever present aggravation concerning this place. She was externally as calm as she was angry on the inside. She hadn't blinked, her focus absolutely impudent.

"Do not test me today," Kyler warned him slowly, enunciating each word, wand pressing harder against his throat all the while. She had to remember to keep her anger in check. Today was no time to go off the rails, especially on someone as unnecessary to her as Stanislav. There was too much to get done before seven o'clock, and she had already wasted the morning away deliberating about Sirius' authenticity and intentions.

Wide-eyed and terror-filled, he had nodded his head shakily. She ripped her wand away from him, leaving him unscathed, and strode to the house uninhibited by any other obstacles.

Damir received one look from her and threw up his hands in surrender, slinking back into the depths of the house. And now, she sat at the desk in the small book-filled room in the corner of the house, chair tilted back on two legs with her own crossed on the desk, reading. She lifted a page and moved it to the back, eyes already scanning the subsequent page. With the whirlwind of the last twenty-four hours, having to take in so much information, it was nice to have something laid out in front of her.

Around the corner there was a man working his way down the stairs. The morning rarely agreed with him and this one was no different. He took each step with great diligence, taking care to shift his weight fully on the narrow steps. Long overworked and well-haggard, his joints screamed and his bones urged him back to bed, or at least a chair.

He rubbed a ragged hand over his perhaps once handsome, but now heavily worn face. His skin had come to resemble well-used leather with creases and wrinkles set deeply, time, sun, seaspray, and injury each having taken their toll. He kneaded and then opened his dark eyes to greet the day.

And behold, before him sat Kyler, relaxed demeanor but focus burning behind her pupils.

He had an innate ability to keep his thoughts, his emotions, his reactions, all under wraps in most cases. Kyler, especially in her present state, was not one of those cases.

His eyes went wide, his blood boiling. Immediately angered, he ripped a bottle off the desk. "What are you doing?" he bellowed.

She seemed unfazed by his outburst, as she didn't pull her gaze from her reading. "Good morning to you too, Ruslan."

He took a closer look at the bottle in hand. "This is my best gin," he continued, irritation still full force.

She took a sip from the glass she had poured herself earlier and nodded, "I can tell."

He exhaled, "what are you doing here, Kyler?"

She furrowed her eyebrows at the documents in hand, folded them back together and tossed them to Ruslan, who caught the bundle against his chest.

"Where did it end up?"

He looked down at the mess of papers in hand, newspaper clippings and blurry photos mostly. "Did it survive?" she prodded.

He flipped through the papers long enough the gather that she was referring to the Blutfahne. He responded, dismissively, "no one knows."

She gave him an unconvinced look. "Fine. How about this one? Magical or hoax?" she asked while he peered at a series of sketches of the highly-controversial, "Mothman."

"Could be either," he responded, uninterested.

She was growing impatient with his lack of forthcoming. "Alright. Where did they end up? Did they live?" she asked handing him a pile of newspaper articles documenting the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Frederick Noonan.

He shrugged, almost bored since accepting that she was here, "beats me."

Anger rising again, she gave it one last go, "how did he do it?" she questioned.

He looked down at a new, much thicker but equally uninformative stack of papers, to behold a gaunt yet wildly and silently screaming face. Sirius Black.

He opened his mouth but closed it again before he said anything. The previous inquiries had been brushed off by his constant air of unyielding disinterest, but this one stirred within him. His fingers flipping through pages, searching for some semblance of an answer for her.

"I…" Ruslan tried. "I really do not know."

"No ideas," Kyler prodded.

"None," he confirmed with a shaking head. "No one can figure that one out."

"His escape?"

He nodded, "or his motives behind his crime."

Kyler stood and lifted a glass off the shelf behind her. She filled it with gin and handed it to the man pouring over the papers with no avail.

She took a sip of her own drink and requested, "tell me."

"I just told you I don't know," he said looking up at her.

"I don't know the story at all," she stretched the truth.

Ruslan gulped his gin, no different from any other morning, and took a breath. "Well," he began, "it's quite unclear..."

He methodically worked his way through the events and various suspected theories surrounding the events that lead to Black's incarceration.

Kyler held her comrade in a stoic gaze from behind the desk, eternally focused on each word that escaped his blanched lips. He went on, referencing the articles and pictures in hand as he told the story of the notorious Sirius Black. Kyler hung on every word, processing every syllable, filling every fact away for future reference.

"So he gave up his friends to be murdered, killed another himself, and got thrown in Azkaban for his efforts," he finished nonchalantly.

She gave a slow nod, trying to reconcile her newfound friend with the story of his past. "So he was found guilty of all of that," she concluded.

"Well, no."

"No?"

"He was given a life sentence in Azkaban without any trial."

"What?" she questioned him. "It seems pretty cut and dry. Even if his motives were obscured, who else would've given up the Potters? Who killed Pettigrew?"

"According to Black, Pettigrew. He went a little mad, but in his small moments of sanity, he held that Pettigrew did it; he betrayed his friends and when Black went after him for it, he faked his own death, framing Black."

She nodded.

"You have to understand what was going on at the time. Times had been very dark. Finally with You-Know-Who's death people could breathe again, they could relax, they didn't have to look over their shoulders every moment. They just wanted to be happy, and they wanted the Sirius Black matter to be taken care of quickly and quietly, with almost no media coverage. He was to be blip in history, not a hero to the other Death Eaters."

"So he was, in fact, a Death Eater?"

"Again, that was never proven. He wasn't thick enough to say it outright, but the Black family would've looked very highly upon a son with that allegiance."

Again, she nodded, recalling how much Sirius hated his family. It didn't add up.

"Why are you so interested in this?" he questioned, trying to read her.

"I am not _so_ interested in this. I would've been just as interested in any of the other mysteries you refused to talk about," she falsely defended herself.

He paused to sip his drink, then asked again, "why are you here?"

She set her glass upon the desk and reached towards the bottom drawer, "I'm borrowing some things."

"You're borrowing some things," he repeated.

"Yes, just a few."

"You could ask, you know," he suggested, annoyance prickled his words.

She shook her head, "not really my style."

"It never was," he said, giving up trying to maintain the upper hand with her.

She rummaged through the bottom drawer looking for something Sirius had mentioned to her the previous night. After some meticulous searching through the drawer she located the page she was looking for, all nine faces smiling and subsequent hands waving. She grabbed a few more issues at random, and stood.

"You know," Ruslan said tapping the picture he was still holding, "there's a ten thousand Galleon bounty on Black's head."

"I know. I'm reminded every time I walk into the restaurant," she informed him. "You should come by sometime," she said with a fake sweet smile.

He just blinked at her, his jaw set into a harsh line.

"Oh, right!" she exclaimed, as though it had just dawned on her, "that's a bit out of your… comfort zone."

"You're not as funny as you think you are."

"I'm a riot," she said, the gin easing her tension.

"Well are you done here then?"

She sized him up for a moment, then asked, "what do you think?"

"Of?"

She gestured to the picture in his hand, "his guilt or his innocence?"

He rubbed his hand over his face again, "a lot points to his guilt…"

"But?"

"But something is off. There's something missing."

She exhaled and nodded, then drained her glass and set it back upon the desk. She wiped her knuckles sloppily across her lip.

"How much have you had?" he asked nodding toward the half empty bottle of gin.

"Just enough to get through today," she answered gathering her things.

He glanced back down at the screaming mugshot and concluded, "I suppose the only one who could tell you the whole story is Black himself, and he's been missing a year. He's probably in the Galapagos or Indonesia by now."

She stifled a smirk and nodded, "probably."

* * *

Bottles, jars, boxes, flasks, pouches, envelopes, dishes and more strained the arenose shelves that obscured the crumbling walls of the shop. It held anything you could imagine and everything you could need, muggle and magical alike.

Kyler dragged her finger along the base of a tank holding live crickets; she picked up a whistle and returned it to it's basket; she ran a knuckle through the fur of a pelt of a chimaera as boasted by it's nearby sign.

Slowly she made her way through the maze and mess of items and racks to a rickety and unimpressive counter. It too had various item strewn across its surface. Behind it stood a man facing away from her. He was small in stature, white curls crowning his head but leaving the top quite bald. He was a thin man apart from a single large roll of fat that had seemed to settle over the years to its position drooped over his belt. He stood in the shadows of the alcove behind the desk making notes in a small black book.

Kyler cleared her throat. The man's quill hesitated on the page, then he finished out the line asking, "how can I assist you today?" and turning around.

His face was ultimately unmemorable. His eyes blinked as though he was seeing light for the first time in weeks, a constant tick. "I was wondering if that was you, Cass," he reckoned. "Didn't know you smoked."

"I don't," she offered.

"Well then there must've been more than one hooded person lurking along my storefront today," he pondered.

"I don't anymore," she correct.

"And yet at least four cigarettes came and went out there today," he offered with an edge even though he was smiling.

"Hildegard?" she questioned the obvious.

"I married a very vigilant woman," he confirmed.

"Nosy is more like it," she quipped.

His jaw set. Hildegard was a severe-looking woman. Nearly a foot taller than him, bony as can be and with a nose that took up half her face it seemed, he and his wife were an odd looking pair.

"You haven't been here for a while, can I direct your attention to our newer stock? We just got in-"

"Maybe next time, McCune. I'd like to take care of my business quickly."

He nodded, "and that business would be?"

Her eyes flicked to a small black door behind the counter and back again. Set into the corner of the establishment, it looked as though it was an afterthought to add a closet.

But that door was no afterthought. It was the pinnacle of the store.

Beneath his watery eyes, a dopey smile appeared with no intent to acknowledge her slight gesture towards the shadowy exit. This caused her to swing her knapsack off her shoulder and plop it onto the cluttered counter between them, knocking over a jar of what seemed to be mismatched earrings. "Oops," she replied unconvincing of remorse, and rummaged through her bag.

The shop owner narrowed his eyes but made no effort to clean up the silvery trinkets bouncing and rolling across his floor all around him. A few moments and quite a bit of rummaging later, she managed to extract some coins exacting the total of the man's cover charge to enter the esoteric chamber. He swiped the coinage into a small purple pouch and tucked it away in a pocket inside his vest.

"Please step back," he instructed as though it was a challenge.

She swiped her bag back off the counter and silently obliged. When he was satisfied with the distance between them, he turned and pressed a flat palm against the door. His lips neared the miniscule gap between the door and the frame and he muttered something unintelligible to Kyler from the distance she was at.

A small ripple spread outward from the circumference of his palm to each corner of the door, then he took half a step back and gestured for her to approach.

She stepped gingerly through the door as though she was walking through a waterfall and into near darkness. Her nostrils were overcome with a dry, woody scent. The man followed not a step behind, and when he ignited the lanterns along the walls the scent became clear.

The walls were in fact wooden, a dark chestnut shade. Within the walls was a maze of shelves, also wooden. Just like the outer store they were filled with various products, but in here they were neatly sorted into even rows, not a single item even a touch out of place. The room seemed completely void of dust. Even with the lanterns lit, the room was dark, due in part to the coloring of the shelves. Their hue was similar to that of her friend's fur. Well, hair, she supposed, and she was renewed by the circumstances of her being at the shop in the first place.

Kyler's eyes swiveled across the shelves. She saw capsules of what she was pretty sure was unicorn hair, a row of time turners, each placed there with great care, crystal balls set in stands of gold and adorned with sapphires; the inventory was diverse, but each product held a lot to be desired due to its rarity, elegance, or, in some cases, illegality.

It was true, "The Outhouse," as it was ironically called, sold nearly anything you could desire, but the back room was set apart, reserved for those things you may wish to acquire discreetly.

"What can I interest you in today?"

She ignored the question. "How'd you managed these, McCune?" she gestured to the time turners. "I thought the Ministry was cracking down…"

"Happy accident, actually. Right place, right time, right price," the businessman side of Ellsworth McCune showed itself.

She nodded, unimpressed. Her hand snatched a silver case slightly larger than a man's hand off a low shelf and she inspected it. It had an intricate clasp on one side.

She looked him dead in the eye offering a silent threat.

"Don't," he warned, more scared himself than her was scaring her.

With a challenge in her brow and a small flick of her wrist, she lightly shook the case. In the otherwise silent room, the contents shuffled.

He sighed and snatched it out of her hand. "What did I just say? You'll ruin these," he complained as he opened it to reset them as he prefered, fueled by compulsion.

She took the distraction of his gaze to slide down the aisle and around a corner to an area that held flasks of many sizes, shapes, and colors. Squatting to view the smallest of the flasks, she called to the man, "it's a wonder you don't go mad out in the shop, all the clutter."

He wasn't listening, just angrily muttering to the cigars in the case.

She lifted a tall but thin red flask that appeared empty up to the light and shook it. It bubbled and she put it back. The contents of an oblong, rough-textured green flask clouded when she repeated the action, and that of a swirly pink flask seemed to solidify before her eyes in an attempt to counter the shaking. Finally, she selected a flask shaped as a pyramid, navy in color, and shook it. The contents sloshed but nothing of significance happened. She shook it more violently, but still, the liquid seemed unfazed.

She smiled at it and stood. "I'll take this," she informed the man as she rounded the corner once again.

He paused in his reorganization and looked up; his face showed surprise. "Really?"

She didn't respond.

"What do you need that for?"

"I'm not sure how that's your business," Kyler offered.

"Fine. Sixty galleons, then," McCune informed her.

"You're dumber than troll dung if you think that's going to happen," she said cooly.

"Have to start somewhere, Cass," he shrugged, "how about fifty-five?"

"How about," she said slowly, calmly, "twelve galleons."

"You're not going to find that anywhere else. Ministry's cracking down on that one, too."

"Fine, twenty," she countered.

"Forty."

"Twenty-two, and I won't tell Hildegard that that last week Elvira stopped by your shop, and an hour or so later returned to the Hen House without her brassiere," she offered with a sly smile.

His eyes went wide.

"Funny how for such a gossip, she misses the things that happen right under her nose," Kyler teased, "though, to be fair, her nose is big enough to block a frighteningly large portion of her vision I'm sure."

He glared, "thirty."

"Throw in the cigars," she said pointing to the case in his hand, but keeping her eyes stationary.

McCune opened his mouth to protest, but gave up halfway through inhaling. "Fine."

Moments later she exited the shop, calling over shoulder, "pleasure doing business with you as always!" She thought she heard the beginning of a rather rude retort, but the door slammed and cut him off.

A renewed nervousness ran through her veins with her purchases in tow, and she exhaled as she stepped onto the street. She joined the throngs of people, mostly keeping to themselves or speaking in hushed tones to companions, and made her way towards the lighthouse down the road.

* * *

 _Tap, tap, tap,_ was the sound of her foot against a tree root. A deep breath with her eyes closed did nothing to calm her down.

She fought the urge to check her knapsack for the umpteenth time. _It's all in there,_ she assured herself.

Finally, there was a sloppy rustling behind her, and out he came. The dog sat and looked at her expectantly, waiting.

"We need to talk so, let's go," she rushed his transformation.

The dog didn't respond.

"The gig is up, Black, I know who you are now."

Still no answer came from the dog. She clenched her fists in an attempt to hold in the unidentifiable yet undeniable feelings twisting through herself. In the time it took her to roll her eyes, he stood before, human as could be.

As her eyes fell upon him, the blood in her veins turned icy. Even though she had battled through the realisation that Sparky was indeed Sirius Black for the past day, having him once again standing in front of her was a lot to handle.

"I, um…," she began sorting through her words as he befuddled them. She fell silent.

"How… um, how are you?" Sirius asked cautiously.

She blinked and mumbled, "I… well…," still unable to detangle a phrase from the untidy snarls of her mind.

"Me too," he offered.

"I don't think so," she assured him uncertainly.

A nod accompanied his response, "you're probably right."

Kyler gave her head a small shake.

"So… where do we start?" he asked.

A steady stream of ice pumped through her heart, guarding it from any feeling. Inside her mind was racing but alert.

"Don't move," she warned.

Sirius nodded calmly, a contrast to the internal frenzied rush he was experiencing. Steeling himself in place, he watched her gingerly take a small step forward. Over what felt like many months, she succeeded in closing the several steps between them.

She reached out and grasped his left wrist to raise his arm; he let her do so.

"Roll up your sleeve," she instructed.

Doing his best to move slowly and not alarm her, he reached over to his wrist being held prisoner and folded his sleeve over and over again until his elbow was just exposed.

With her free hand she took out her wand, eyes trained on his. She gulped; he mirrored her action. "I just… I need to check. This shouldn't hurt."

"Sure," he watched her intently.

Kyler rested her trembling wand tip against his wrist, she slowly eased it upwards to his elbow, muttering under her breath. A cool wispy vapor, sunset gold in color, emitted from her wand and glided across his skin. It had no effect except to cause his hairs to stand on end.

She seemed to relax slightly, but continued in her efforts. She wrapped her wand around his wrist in three concentric circles, each time getting closer to his skin. The closer she got, the more Sirius could feel it, the bubbling sensation just below his skin. Still, to the eye, his arm seemed unfazed.

"You don't have it," she concluded, slightly surprised but mostly relieved.

"Dragon pox?" he joked, trying to diffuse the tension.

Flinching slightly at the humor, the corners of her mouth twitched towards a half-hearted smile, but she composed her demeanor just as quickly. "The Dark Mark."

He nodded, "well, maybe I've been in prison too long and things have changed, but people who aren't Death Eaters tend to not have the Mark."

"So you're not one," Kyler intoned.

Sirius nodded, "just as I explained last night."

She pulled her knapsack off her back and began fishing around inside of it, "I researched you today."

"And did you find anything interesting?"

"Heaps of interesting things. ...confusing things, actually," she admitted, pulling something from the depths of her bag. She held it out to him.

He took it and looked down to behold nine smiling faces. "You found it," he marvelled. Of course the black-and-white photo and the aged parchment didn't provide the most accurate representation, but there they were beneath the Daily Prophet headline.

"See?" he spurred, "there he is."

She didn't look to where he was pointing; she didn't need to. Kyler had stared at the picture all afternoon.

He looked up to see Kyler viewing him through skeptically half-lidded eyes.

He slumped with disappointment, "you're never going to believe me, are you?"

She exhaled. She wanted to believe him, but not without reason.

"I'm being truthful. What can I do to convince you?"

She silently wrapped her fingers around a small vial in her bag.

"I would bring Pettigrew here and prove it all to you if I could," Sirius proclaimed.

"There is something else you could do…," she murmured.

"Sure, yes. What is it?" he asked excitedly.

Kyler raised her eyebrows at his willingness, and pulled the miniscule bottle out into sight. She held it between two fingers and waited.

His brow furrowed at the sight. Sirius looked up at her, then down again at the bottle. "Is that…?"

"Veritaserum, yes," she finished for him.

He nodded, understanding the position she was in. "Alright, then."

She handed it over to him and he quickly popped out the cork, "just so you're aware, this has been used on me countless times before. So it could take a moment or two to set in," he warned. He threw his head back and easily swallowed the bottle's contents.

She took the empty bottle from his hand and recorked it, awaiting the effects of the potion. He was right, at first nothing happened. A moment of apprehension passed between them like a black cat stalking an innocent mouse, but scurried away as Sirius became inebriated with the truth serum. He was compelled to indulge in a slow blink and a sloppy smile. He opened his eyes to gaze out across the pond as though he had not a care in the world.

She narrowed her eyes, suspicious of the effect the serum was having, but she had seen weirder reactions in her days.

"Sirius?" she prompted.

"Yes, Kyler?" he said slowly and happily.

"So you are then…" she mumbled to herself, then to him, "What is your name?"

"Sirius Orion Black."

"And where have you been living the past decade?"

"Azkaban Prison."

"And when did you escape?"

"Last summer, August."

She took her eyes off him for the first time since he had arrived. She turned to see what he was staring at, and could not see. It seemed he was staring at nothing at all, completely taken over by the truthfulness coursing through him.

She didn't know how long this would last. She had to get down to the brass tacks about him; there was no time to calm her nerves or consider her decorum.

So she said it. She opened her mouth, and exhaled, "who killed Peter Pettigrew?"

He had no emotional reaction to her question, just his same dazed complacency as he answered, "no one."

"No one," Kyler repeated, almost as a question though she knew it was the truth. A slight relief washed over her.

"No one, he's still alive. He killed the muggles that day and slipped away."

"His finger was found," she challenged.

He bent down to retrieve the paper he had discarded earlier. He leaned toward her to let her see and jabbed a finger at it. "Missing a toe," he explained of the rat upon a boy's shoulder in the picture.

And so he was.

"So when you saw this, that was when you escaped?" she prodded.

"Shortly after, yes."

"To…" she encouraged.

"To kill him," he answered, too calmly for comfort. She hope the regularity of his tone was caused by the drug within him.

Kyler nodded, wondering how her life had come to this: interrogating a hardened criminal on truth serum at his request. Of course this was just one of the many moments in her life during which she should have stopped to ask herself just what she hoped would come from her actions. The time she took a baby dwarf caiman home to care for (much to her mother's chagrin); her attempts at launching herself, via toboggan, off a homemade ramp; the time she was caught by a rather petulant and quite masculine farm wife while stealing boots out of a barn in Bavaria.

But amidst the multitude of her temerarious actions, this stood alone. If she took him at his word (much easier now due to the Veritaserum) and befriended the man, she risked consequences of consorting with a criminal; if she turned and left, she risked awakening the madness (either exasperated or instilled in him by his time in Azkaban) that could inspire him to come after her. After all, he had broken out to commit a murder, what if he didn't care whose it was?

"I didn't though," he offered in her contemplative silence, "Harry stopped me."

She nodded, grateful to have her thought process restored. "Do you see much of Harry?"

"The first year of his life, yes… and then twice this past year. I saw a Quidditch match of his, and then the night I tried to kill Pettigrew."

The puzzled look she threw him went unnoticed as he was still gazing at nothing with a boyish smile. She felt indebted to that smile. For months, that face had instilled in her a very real cautioning fear of the screaming man with the angular face and the taste for the blood of his friends. But that stupid, dopey, juveniley blissful smile… it was slowly erasing the picture of the Sirius black who had formed in her head. Slowly he was swapping that one out with the dog by the tree: kind, entertaining, thought-provoking, with an appetite for (mostly) harmless trouble.

"I thought you would've wanted to spend more time with him once you were out…" Kyler thought aloud.

"Well I'm out, but I'm not free. It's not safe for him," Sirius explained.

After some further questioning, Sirius froze. He gulped and shook his head. Blinking furiously, he shifted, unbalanced…

* * *

"Hey… there we are," a faraway voice concluded.

His heavy eyelids flickered open; he was gazing at an expanse of pockmarked cream. Sirius looked around trying to take in unexpected surroundings; the pond was the last thing he remembered, and this was certainly not it. With a start, he pushed himself to his elbows and quickly regretted doing so. Blood rushed to his head and darkness swarmed his vision; his neck became weak and he felt his head fall back. "Whoa, alright, settle down," a voice encouraged, sounding much closer now. It was joined by the weight of a warm hand resting on his shoulder, gently guiding him back to the… bed? Cot? He wasn't sure. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"No, that'll only make it worse, just relax."

Sirius refused the advice and instead raised his hands to his face, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"What did I just say?" he was asked as his hands were wrenched away and back to his sides. A cool cloth was laid across his forehead, soothing the discomfort behind his eyes, which he opened once again.

A giggle accompanied the greeting, "well, hello."

"Hi…," he heard his voice respond, raspy. "What happened?"

"You're fine, Black. We're at my house," Kyler responded.

"But what happened? Did you jinx me?" he asked, realizing the apprehension that had stained her earlier actions and words was now absent.

The giggle made another appearance, "I did not jinx you, you did this all on your own."

"What happ-" he started angrily now but she cut him off.

"Oh, shush. You're irritable when you're in pain, eh? You fell, as the Veritaserum was wearing off, tripped over a root, hit your head on the beech tree. You really don't handle Veritaserum well, eh?"

It wasn't until now that Sirius realized her fingers were in his hair, dabbing something against his scalp. "Am I bleeding?"

"Hardly," she shrugged.

"You don't have to-, here I can do that," he made another move to raise himself up and take whatever was in her hand, but she held it far out of reach and pushed him, once again, back down, onto a couch, he now realized.

"You're going to mess it up, Black," Kyler insisted, "I'm almost done anyways."

"Why don't you just charm it?"

"I thought that might be a bit of a rude awakening. Plus, _tergeo_ and _episkey_ have never really agreed with me… you've seen some of my scars."

He nodded slightly. "That figures. You're rubbish in a lot of magical ways," he smirked and gazed up at her out of the corner of his eye.

Kyler raised her eyebrows, "excuse me, Black?"

"Who in their right mind prefers Liquorice Wands to Chocolate Frogs?" Sirius questioned.

Kyler rolled her eyes as her fingers dabbed at the gash on his head. "Oh, please, this again?" She flipped the cloth on his forehead and he silently thanked her. "I like liquorice, ever since I was a kid. And Chocolate Frogs are more work than they're worth, I don't want to have to work for my chocolate, I just want to enjoy it… the cards are alright."

Sirius sighed, accepting that they would never agree on this particular issue.

"You were awfully quick to take that Veritaserum," Kyler observed.

"Thirteen years of people thinking you're a murderer… it gets old. Happy to put it to bed as soon as I can. You seem less… nervous."

"Big, bad, Sirius Black… trips and falls, hits his head on a tree and knocks himself out- ruins the threatening illusion you have a bit. Plus you were very transparent with that in your system."

"Drat," he said dryly.

Kyler lifted the cloth from his forehead and stood as she asked, "you ready to try and sit up?"

"I can sit up just fine," he scoffed.

"Well you tried a few minutes ago and you nearly passed out again, so take it slow. I'll help." It wasn't a suggestion.

Sirius grumbled his disagreement but allowed her to grasp his forearms and help him balance as he sat up. He head swirled and surged. Tightly he shut his eyes.

"Hey, no. Black, eyes open."

He did not oblige.

"I know that seems like it will help, but it won't. Open."

Sirius squinted, unable to make out anything.

"No, all the way, Black."

His eyelids slowly parted to allow him the sight of Kyler peering at him discerningly. "Good, keep them open." She abandoned her straight-back chair for the kitchen.

"Can I get you anything?" she called from the kitchen.

"I'm alright," he said sliding forward, balancing carefully.

She came back a few moments later with two cups of tea to find him standing, balancing just fine. She sat on the recently abandoned couch after placing one cup of tea on the table, taking a slow sip from the other. She let out a hiss as she burned her tongue and Sirius turned around, hands in his pockets.

"Iceland," she stated with a nod.

"Sorry?" he squinted at her.

"That photograph, it was in Iceland," she explained. "I'm not sure how you take it," she nodded to the tea.

"Any way is fine," Sirius assured her as he took a sip. He swallowed, seemingly unbothered by the temperature. "I thought you were sixteen in Iceland?" he asked as he lifted in from the shelf. It was the same photograph he had deliberated over during his first visit to her house. He carried it over to her as birds silently squawked and one girl silently laughed.

She took it from his hand and smiled at it. "I was there a few times… that was when I was seven. Then I was there shortly after I ruined my hand, so age thirteen, the volcano, age sixteen, and… when I was twenty I spent some time there again."

"No wonder it's one of your favorite places, looks like you're having fun there. You are the one with the bird, right?"

"Yeah, and that's Rosie," she pointed to the cautious, slightly anxious girl to the side. "She was less enthused."

Sirius chuckled as he perched on the edge of the coffee table.

"That was a good day..." she reminisced. "You can sit on the couch, you know."

He hesitated, but complied, keeping a respectable distance. "You can call me Sirius, you know," he countered in the same tone. She drew her eyes from the picture and held his gaze for a moment. "Just if you want," he added as an afterthought. "What are those anyways?" he gestured towards the picture.

"Puffins," she announced. "Arctic birds. That's a popular tourist spot for muggles, so these ones are around people enough that they're pretty comfortable with them."

"That's in the arctic? Aren't you cold? You have no coat."

"Yes I do, see? It's right there," Kyler pointed to the discarded garment among the rocks. "I was running around, I was fine. Though I did lose that scarf that day, and I was pretty gutted actually."

"Special scarf?" Sirius inquired.

Kyler shrugged, "it was periwinkle. I really liked that as a kid."

Sirius narrowed his gaze inquisitively and smiled out the corner of his mouth, "I wouldn't have expected that."

"As a kid it bothered me to have a boy's name."

"Go by your middle name?" Sirius suggested.

"Diarmuid," Kyler offered with a nod, "named for my uncle and grandfather. Not really an improvement."

There was a small silence as Sirius spoke his name aloud in his head, _Kyler Diarmuid Kirwan._

"Orion, did you say?" she asked thinking back to the pond.

"Named for my father," he said shortly.

"Two stars…" Kyler observed. "I like that."

"The whole family is stars… or constellations, or galaxies… all celestial. It's a bit high and mighty if you ask me," he revealed.

"Well," she took his empty teacup from the table along with her mostly full but neglected one, and stood to leave for the kitchen, "nobody asked you, Sirius," she spoke harshly and turned away to clear the cups.

Sirius balked at her sudden (and he felt misplaced) anger as she left the room.

"I'm only joking," Kyler explained when she caught sight of his bewildered face.

"Oh," he chuckled, still confused.

"I know you've been through a lot," she spoke to him as she set the cups inside the sink, "but you need to lighten up a bit." He squinted at her as she dried a spot on the counter and flipped the towel to hang over her shoulder, letting her chef's persona show through a smidge. She glanced out the window and commented, "it's getting late. We should get you home."


End file.
